CS, profiles and workflow (rather long)

Been happily editing photographs as a hobby and not been too concerned at the fact that my pics don’t come out of my printer as on the monitor, I am just used to the difference and compensate. Well that was until I started reading threads, web sites, Adobe help and the groups concerning colour management. Now I’m more confused than when I started. Trouble is, I’ve got the bug, I need to know, so very sorry guys and gals for my boring you to death on a subject which Google itself must be sick off. Have done the simple ‘Adobe gamma’ setup to get my monitor roughly right.

I import into CS my raw pics from my Minolta camera. I do accept a conversion to Adobe98 RGB from the embedded sRGB camera setting. Then I do my editing to my pics. Next In view/proof setup I’ve already got my custom proof to my HP7960 inkjet glossy paper. So I just select image/duplicate to give me 2 the same images, then view/proof colours. I see my images flatten out a bit. So it’s now I edit to give it a lift again. My question is why not edit in the first place with soft proofing?? Why have to do it twice? Can I actually edit right away in ‘soft proof’ mode when importing the picture into the workspace?

Second question re the print process, when edit is complete, when I select print/preview in the source space section am I correct in saying that if I don’t soft proof my image, I’m still in Adobe RGB work space, no conversion has taken place so I select ‘document’ for the SOURCE SPACE and in the PRINT SPACE my profile for my printer and it’s paper, this does the final conversion before printing yes? but if I do soft proof I select ‘proof setup’ as the SOURCE SPACE -HP7960 high gloss film, 8 ink’ and because the ‘soft proofing’ has done the ‘printer profile conversion’ I select ‘same as source’ in the PRINT SPACE option. Otherwise if I select my printer again in the PRINT SPACE profile I’ve done the conversion twice, which I’ve read could have a detrimental effect on print colours.

Have I grasped the nettle yet or not?? The more I’ve read the more there are differing views. Any help in ‘lay terms’ as possible for the correct procedure to output to an inkjet from importing images to the initial workspace would be most welcome.

For those that have the time I include something I grabbed from Google this p.m and includes references to Bruce Fraser and adobe on this issue but nevertheless didn’t make things any clearer. Yes it could be me, but as I know it can be a complex subject as the traffic on this subject proves.

Many thanks in advance,

Keiron Carroll

"Use your common sense. The document space is the space of the document. The space you want to use is a different one, namely the printer space. So for printing, a conversion from document space to printer space has to be done. "Proof" shows you that conversion, so "proof space" shows your document WHEN CONVERTED to printer space.

How can you use this during printing?

If you use the printer profile as the printer space, you can use the ‘document’ or ‘proof’ as the source. It doesn’t matter, because in both cases the correct conversion will take place.

If you use "Same as source" as print space, you MUST use "Proof" as source (because the proof space is identical to the printer space, the source space is not). If you would use ‘document’, NO conversion would take place and the print would be off color.

An alternative method is to convert the document to the print profile (using the "convert to profile" menu). Then you can simply use "source space" as printer space, because the source space is now identical to the print space. In this case you don’t need soft proofing at all, because you are already looking at your document in printer space.

John, I just got off the phone with my service bureau owner, who has had conversations with Adobe and Bruce Fraser on this issue. As suggested
[but not clarified] in RWP, it would appear that we are all operating
under a misunderstanding. FWIW, both Bill Hilton and I have been using profiles forquite a long time and this is NOT necessarily "common sense." What we’re dealing with here is a, relatively speaking, undocumented setting.

Apparently, "Source Space=Proof" is to be used when you want to hard-proof a device that is *different* from your printing device. For example, say you want to hard-proof a US sheetfed CMYK file on an Epson 7600: you set up the soft proof with the CMYK profile, set Source:Proof, and use the correct profile *for your printer* in the Print Space. You will end up with a hard proof of the final CMYK output, as best your printer, profile, and Photoshop CMS can manage. As explained to me, Source:Proof uses the on-the-fly profile conversion rendered in the soft-proof to describe the file *before* it is converted, if at all, to the printer profile.

Now, here’s where it gets muddy. If you soft-proof with your Epson 7600 profile, use "Source:Proof" and "Print Space: the same profile", you have, in essence, "double-converted" the file, albeit from the "same" space to the "same" space. The problem is, according to my contact, the soft-proof on-the-fly rendering is not completely accurate, so with rounding errors and slight inaccuracies, you *will* end up with a conversion that has different file information than if you had simply converted from "Document." Likewise, similar "inaccuracy" errors will occur if you use "Source:Proof" and "Print Space: Same as Source." As I mentioned to Bill, however, I saw no glaring differences, but I will now run another test an pay closer attention.

So, if what I have been told is correct, the two workflows for day-in, day-out inkjet printing are either "Source Space:Document, Print Space: Profile" or "Convert to Profile, Source Space:Document, Print Space:Same as Source." Last, you STILL want to use the soft-proof even when you run a pre-printing "convert to profile" because you cannot approximate "paper-white" in the "convert to profile" preview screen. IOW, even though the final output is identical, the screen rendition and match is much more accurate in the soft-proof window.

If either of you find out anything different, please let me know. I wish that I could find the e-mail I got from Bruce about 3 years ago on this subject, but it’s gone into the ether somewhere. IIRC, however, he did say that Jon Cone’s workflow was problematic, but that in many cases the visible differences would be insignificant. Regardless, I do remember him suggesting the use of Document for the optimum results.

Here’s what Photoshop Help says in the "Using Color Management When Printing" section:

<quote>
To color-manage a document while printing:

3) Select an option for Source Space:

* Select Document to reproduce document colors as interpreted by the profile currently assigned to the document. <<Note: I interpret "profile currently assigned to the document" to mean the working space, ie, Ektaspace or AdobeRGB for me >>

* Select Proof to reproduce document colors as interpreted by the current proof profile. This option is useful for generating hard proofs of your soft-proof settings. (See Soft-proofing colors.)

<<Note: I interpret this pretty much as it says, use this when you’ve assigned a profile for soft proofing and want to print. "current proof profile" is the Epson ICM profile I’m proofing to at the moment as set with the View > Proof Setup > Custom command .>>

</quote>

So I’m happy with using "Source Space = Proof", based on what this seems to say.

If I have some time I’ll try it both ways (try a really oddball working space to see if using Document throws it off?) but I’m OK with the print results I’m seeing so far with the set-up I first suggested.

Understanding color spaces is not so difficult, if you consider them as if they are different languages. Let’s say that you have a document written in English, and your have a French printer (a printer that will only print in French). How do you use that?

In order to get a good French print, you need a proper translation. If not, the English text will simply be changed into French word by word, which of course will NOT give you a good translation. There are options: Photoshop can translate for you first, or the translation can be done ‘on the fly’ during printing, but one of the two MUST do the translation.

If you choose ‘document space’ as the source space for printing, you tell Photoshop to use the original English text. So no translation has been done yet. In order to get a translation, you will have to choose ‘print space’ (French translation) in the print setup. Translation will take place during printing and all will be well. The only disadvantge is that you have no way of seeing the French text before it is printed, so you cannot do any manual corrections.

You can also use a ‘Proof’ in Photoshop. In that case, Photoshop will show you how the text looks if it was translated, without really altering the document. Consequently, ‘Proof space’ is a correct French translation, but done by Photoshop first rather than ‘on the fly’. This method gives you the possibility to do some manual corrections before you print the document. To print this text, you only have to tell Photoshop to use this proof in stead of the original document (use ‘Proof space’ as source). Next you can tell the printer it doesn’t have to bother about translations, because that was already taken care of. Select ‘same as source’ as printer space.

Finally, you could use "Convert to profile" in Photoshop. This also translates the English text into French, but the difference with ‘Proof’ is that the document itself is now translated, so the original English text is gone. So save this document under another name if you want to keep it for more prints! Again you can do manual corrections before you print. Because you now already have a French translation, you do not need to ‘proof’ anything anymore and you also do not need a translation during printing. You simply choose ‘document space’ as your source and use ‘same as source’ as the printer space."

Does this make any sense to you?

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