Color Management

In article <ythQb.12961$>,
says…

Greetings… Hoping the group can clear up a problem I’m having as far as color calibration and profiling in my small workplace.

Our setting: We use Photoshop and Illustrator on both Win2k and OSX platforms. We proof color prints on a Epson Stylus Pro 7600 – for which, we use a custom ICC profile (CMYK).

The problem: My question is in regard to the color management between the monitor and Photoshop. Now I understand the limitations of the CMYK color space quite well, but can’t seem to grasp what needs to be done to display these colors as close as possible on the monitor… Blues on the screen print as purple on the printer. Reds tend to go a bit orange, etc…
We had a few monitors profiled and custom ICC profiles created for them and loaded in Windows display properties, but do we then use ‘that’ profile in Photoshop/Illustrator or stay with Adobe RGB 1998, etc…? What am I missing here?

Thank you for reading this long winded post…

n8

I’m not sure about Illustrator, but in Photoshop you should still have an Adobe RGB working space and the images should still be in that profile (or something similar). The monitor profile is automatically used by Photoshop to compensate what it displays, in order to allow for the monitor characteristics. To get an idea of how the print will look, you need to use the soft-proof capabilities of Photoshop. I’m also not familiar with CMYK profiles, but you should basically choose View->Proof Setup->Custom and choose your printer profile. Pick a rendering intent but DO NOT check ‘Preserve Color Numbers’.

K, I’ll experiment with softproofing Monday morning…
Can you then work in softproofing mode or does it not run in realtime?

n8

I’m not sure about Illustrator, but in Photoshop you should still have an Adobe RGB working space and the images should still be in that profile (or something similar). The monitor profile is automatically used by Photoshop to compensate what it displays, in order to allow for the monitor characteristics. To get an idea of how the print will look, you need to use the soft-proof capabilities of Photoshop. I’m also not familiar with CMYK profiles, but you should basically choose View->Proof Setup->Custom and choose your printer profile. Pick a rendering intent but DO NOT check ‘Preserve Color Numbers’.

"n8 skow" wrote in message

Greetings… Hoping the group can clear up a problem I’m having as far as color calibration and profiling in my small workplace.

There are those of here who will try, and others will have ideas if I can’t help you.

Our setting: We use Photoshop and Illustrator on both Win2k and OSX platforms. We proof color prints on a Epson Stylus Pro 7600 – for which,

we

use a custom ICC profile (CMYK).

"CMYK", eh? So, you are using RIP software instead of the Espon RGB driver? Which one?.

The problem: My question is in regard to the color management between the monitor and Photoshop. Now I understand the limitations of the CMYK color space quite well, but can’t seem to grasp what needs to be done to display these colors as close as possible on the monitor… Blues on the screen print as purple on the printer. Reds tend to go a bit orange, etc…

So, just to be clear, what you are saying is you have a bad printer-screen match? If so, what are you using to calibrate and profile the monitors? Are you using the RIP supplied profiles, and are you using the designated papers? Or rather, third party profiles – and, if so, whose?

With good profiles (RGB or RIP), you should get a darned good match with one of these printers. Excellent, in fact. (provided the rest of your system is also up to snuff)

We had a few monitors profiled and custom ICC profiles created for them

and

loaded in Windows display properties, but do we then use ‘that’ profile in Photoshop/Illustrator or stay with Adobe RGB 1998, etc…?

The RIPs that I am familiar with for most Epsons still designate using a standard RGB working color space. For a 7600, that will likely be AdobeRGB98 to avoid the gamut clipping of the samller RGB color space, sRGB. The monitor profile is used by Photoshop in the background to correctly render file colors on your screen – do NOT use it as a profile or as a working color space. Stick with ARGB98.

Once leaving the print menu in PS, the RIP menu should come up in place of the Epson driver menu. Make sure to let the RIP handle the color management (ie, send the file with no profile conversion in PS, rather you must designate the profile in the RIP dialogue – otherwise you will end up with bizarre "double color-management.") You probably paid big, big bucks for your RIP, so let it do the job.

What version of Photoshop are you using?

Finally, just to be positive, are you certain you’re using RIP and not the RGB driver? (that’s the only explanation for a "CMYK" profile…unless you are just confused) And, if you are cluless what I mean by RIP and the standard *Epson* dialogue box comes up when you want to send a file to the printer, we will need to start over. 😉

—–= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =—– http://www.newsfeeds.com – The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! —–== Over 100,000 Newsgroups – 19 Different Servers! =—–

You can switch soft-proofing on and off, once you have set everything up in ‘Custom’, by using <CTRL Y> (on a PC – not sure about Mac). It’s real time, so you can edit and colour correct while soft proofing is switched on 🙂
It’s also very useful to turn on ‘Gamut warning’
(<SHIFT+CTRL Y> on a PC) to show which colours cannot be printed by your target device. If there are a lot of out-of- gamut colours you’ll get better results with a rendering intent of ‘Perceptual’ rather than ‘Relative Colorimetric’.
As I say, though, I’ve no experience of CMYK profiles and devices, so this is theoretical from my point of view…

In article <8JjQb.13124$>,
says…

K, I’ll experiment with softproofing Monday morning…
Can you then work in softproofing mode or does it not run in realtime?
n8

I’m not sure about Illustrator, but in Photoshop you should still have an Adobe RGB working space and the images should still be in that profile (or something similar). The monitor profile is automatically used by Photoshop to compensate what it displays, in order to allow for the monitor characteristics. To get an idea of how the print will look, you need to use the soft-proof capabilities of Photoshop. I’m also not familiar with CMYK profiles, but you should basically choose View->Proof Setup->Custom and choose your printer profile. Pick a rendering intent but DO NOT check ‘Preserve Color Numbers’.