www.colourphil.co.uk Open in urlscan Pro
195.8.197.17  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

colour management information from Phil Cruse
Graphic Quality Consultancy


INTRODUCTION TO PHOTOSHOP COLOUR MANAGEMENT


PART 1 - 'COLOR SETTINGS'


This is a very basic introduction for photographers, designers and pre-press
professionals. Absolutely not a Photoshop Manual!

We start with the 'Color Settings' as these introduce many of the Adobe Colour
Management concepts. You should be aware that Photoshop is always using Colour
Management, and that it cannot be switched off.

There's no 'standard' Colour Setting for Photoshop, because of its very diverse
user base. As it cannot 'know' what your requirements are it will have to be
'told'. It has to be able to handle many different types of users' from
different professions and different countries and with different skill levels,
with many different workflows and requirements. Even if your settings aren't
optimum for you, it will assume that is what you want!

In particular, there are often problems in companies with several different
staff members using Photoshop, sometimes all with different 'Standard Color
Settings'. Often problems arise when someone 'inherits' a computer from another
staff member with different ideas about colour!

Most of the information here is for the newer versions of Photoshop CC but also
the discontinued CS6. The menu illustrations are from CC, although the menus
have changed very little from CS, apart from the colour 'theme'. If it (mostly)
works don't mess with it!

PHOTOSHOP COLOR SETTINGS MENU

Although this menu should perhaps be titled 'Colour Preferences', it is
considered an 'Edit' and is found under Edit/Color Settings. This menu defines
your Colour Management 'policies', but just like any policies they can be
overridden when required.

Click More Options for advanced menu (CS only?). Also ensure Preview is turned
On.

Description: Actually this is at the bottom of the menu, but is the first to be
shown here because it is very useful! If you let the cursor 'hover' over a
setting you will see a description of its function, as shown here in our screen
grab.

Settings: You can, and indeed should, save your settings, so that you can later
recall them if a newer set you made isn't quite right. You can also copy them to
another computer. This is particularly useful where companies have a Corporate
style. There are several default settings, which have rather official-sounding
names. These options will vary with each version of CS and CC. You will need to
select the set which is most suitable for you, but you will often need to modify
the settings to suit your own needs. A good starting point is Europe Prepress 3
. Don't worry if you are not in Europe, or not in prepress, as they contain
useful general-purpose settings. If after trying different settings you find a
better set, or modify it, you can save this new set with a new name. Be aware
that most sets have the rather small colour gamut sRGB as their default RGB
colour space, which you will most likely change anyway! The CC menu is shown
here.

Working Spaces:
A Working Space is the (usually) 'standard' Colour Space you prefer to use for
most of your images in Photoshop, whether they were generated by your camera, or
supplied by an outside photographer, artist, etc. This specifies the
default Colour Space (ICC profile) to be used when creating a new document, and
also the default space for colour conversions. This is only your preferred
colour space, as you can use other colour spaces later.

RGB:  We suggest Adobe RGB because of it's fairly wide colour gamut. Wide-gamut
monitors can display almost all of its gamut. This is one of the most popular
RGB colour spaces for professionals, the other being the very large ProPhotoRGB,
which is also well worth considering.
Unless you are only going to be producing images for the Web, it's probably not
advisable to set sRGB as your Working Space. sRGB has a smaller colour gamut in
certain colours than that of most modern inkjet printers. More information about
this later. Don't use Monitor RGB as it refers to your present monitor which you
may change, or you may send images to friends, or use them on the Web!

CMYK: This is only important if you are handling images for commercial (offset
litho, etc.) printing, when it is very important! If you just blindly click
Image/Mode/CMYK this is the profile which will be used to do the conversion.
You also shouldn't still be using SWOP CMYK unless you have a very good reason
to!
If you produce images for commercial printing you absolutely must seek advice
from your printing company. Don't second-guess, as it's so easy to get wrong,
and could lead to very poor quality printing, and rejection of the entire press
run!
Be aware that the vast majority of inkjet printers, although they use 'CMYK'
ink, cannot print 'CMYK' images properly as their drivers are RGB only.
You probably shouldn't even be thinking about using CMYK unless you are very
familiar with it!

Gray: Refers to the relevant 'Grayscale', i.e. Black and White, gradation. 2.2
is suggested.

Spot: Refers to the relevant gradation used for  'spot' colours which are
additional colour inks printed along with CMYK inks in commercial printing,
often as 'house colours' for packaging, logos, etc.

Color Management Policies: 
These describe how the application handles colour management when you open an
image, particularly with regard to embedded profiles. These are rather tricky
options to recommend as some users (publishers, etc.) may get a lot of images
with various different profiles, while others may only ever see one profile.

RGB, CMYK and Gray: Normally select the same option. The safest is Preserve
Embedded Profiles. You still have the possibility to Assign Profile or Convert
to Profile later.

Profile Mismatches: Normally all ticked. When you open an image without an
embedded profile, or with a profile which is different from your working
profile, you will then get a dialogue asking how you wish to proceed.

Conversion Options:
Engine: Adobe (ACE). This is preferable to either Apple or Microsoft.
Intent: Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric recommended.
Use Black Point Compensation: selected.
Use Dither; Compensate for Scene-referred..; Both ticked.

Advanced Controls: Desaturate Monitor; Blend RGB Colors: both OFF.

Save: When you have finished the settings click: Save and give the set a name
and description.


To recall: in older versions click: Load
In newer versions select in Settings

In this case it was saved as Phil_150520.csf
This 'settings file' is located under (macOS): username/Library/Application
Support/Adobe/Color/Settings
You can copy this file and transfer to other computers



Page 2 - Photoshop - Colour Spaces



Our Reasonably Priced, High Quality Remote Custom Printer Profiling Service


This page updated January 3, 2024

What We Do

 * Home

 * About Us

 * Remote Printer Profiling


Colour Management Theory
 * Introduction to Colour Management

 * Photoshop Colour Settings

 * Photoshop Colour Spaces

 * Photoshop Profile Mismatch

 * Photoshop Viewing Colour

 * Old Photoshop Versions Printing with Colour Management

 * Photoshop CS6 & CC Printing with Colour Management

 * Lightroom Editing

 * Lightroom Printing

 * Photoshop Raw Images Introduction

 * Why Prints Appear Too Dark

 * Rendering Intents

 * Printing Industry Standards

 * Some Scanner Info


Navigation
 * Site Map

 * Links