Sharing profiles with overseas service bureaus

This is my first post, and Im not sure how to pose my question- so I’ll start with a brief description of my situation.

I am the production artist and photoshop "guru" of an in house graphics department in the U.S., and my job involves retouching images for packaging that is printed in Hong Kong.

The HK service bureau has been converting our files to a custom profile they’ve created, whereas we are using U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 (aka North American Prepress by Adobe).
This has resulted in noticable color shifts on the proofs and I’d like to avoid these surprises in the future.

So…
Because we are considering having them process a large batch of images for us (Using the orig RAW files, create clipping paths, drop shadows and color corrections), I’m trying to determine the best way to share files with them.

My thought is to have them convert the RAW files to our U.S. SWOP profile, and only *Assign* their custom profile while they work on the files. This way, when we receive the finished files, we have the option to use the U.S. profile, and not risk and color problems converting their custom profile to U.S. SWOP.

OR-
would it be best to do the color corrections myself, with their custom profile *Assigned* –
and allowing them to do the "hard" conversion to their profile before they output film, thus removing the color shifts and "surprise" proofs.

I hope this is making sense, I need to determine a process rather quickly.

pixelpro wrote:

This is my first post, and Im not sure how to pose my question- so I’ll start with a brief description of my situation.

I am the production artist and photoshop "guru" of an in house graphics department in the U.S., and my job involves retouching images for packaging that is printed in Hong Kong.

The HK service bureau has been converting our files to a custom profile they’ve created, whereas we are using U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 (aka North American Prepress by Adobe).
This has resulted in noticable color shifts on the proofs and I’d like to avoid these surprises in the future.

So…
Because we are considering having them process a large batch of images for us (Using the orig RAW files, create clipping paths, drop shadows and color corrections), I’m trying to determine the best way to share files with them.

My thought is to have them convert the RAW files to our U.S. SWOP profile, and only *Assign* their custom profile while they work on the files. This way, when we receive the finished files, we have the option to use the U.S. profile, and not risk and color problems converting their custom profile to U.S. SWOP.

OR-
would it be best to do the color corrections myself, with their custom profile *Assigned* –
and allowing them to do the "hard" conversion to their profile before they output film, thus removing the color shifts and "surprise" proofs.

I hope this is making sense, I need to determine a process rather quickly.

If you are a ‘Photoshop guru’, you should know that ‘assigning’ a different profile is not the way to do this. First you should get their profile, and then you should color correct your images while doing a ‘soft proof’ using that profile.

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.com

Hello Group,

This is my first post, and Im not sure how to pose my question- so I’ll start with a brief description of my situation.

I am the production artist and photoshop "guru" of an in house graphics department in the U.S., and my job involves retouching images for packaging that is printed in Hong Kong.

The HK service bureau has been converting our files to a custom profile they’ve created, whereas we are using U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 (aka North American Prepress by Adobe).
This has resulted in noticable color shifts on the proofs and I’d like to avoid these surprises in the future.

So…
Because we are considering having them process a large batch of images for us (Using the orig RAW files, create clipping paths, drop shadows and color corrections), I’m trying to determine the best way to share files with them.

My thought is to have them convert the RAW files to our U.S. SWOP profile, and only *Assign* their custom profile while they work on the files. This way, when we receive the finished files, we have the option to use the U.S. profile, and not risk and color problems converting their custom profile to U.S. SWOP.

OR-
would it be best to do the color corrections myself, with their custom profile *Assigned* –
and allowing them to do the "hard" conversion to their profile before they output film, thus removing the color shifts and "surprise" proofs.

I hope this is making sense, I need to determine a process rather quickly.
Thanks!

I did manage to extract their profile, which is how I was able to Assign
it to my files for a "soft proof", which confirmed the results I was getting
from their proofs.

Also from my first post, they will do the work on a large batch of images
before I even get to see them.

The images will be used for printing overseas, then the files are re- purposed
for other collateral that will be printed stateside, where U.S. SWOP is more commonly used.

My concern is having to re-color correct these files. Perhaps the solution is for
them process the files with U.S, SWOP, then only *Assign their custom profile
to make their color adjustments, and send us the files in this format. I can then
either approve the images or make corrections, and then they can make the
*Conversion before they output film. I will also have files that still have the
SWOP profile.

If my thinking is wrong, or I’m close but not quite, please enlighten me.
I thought thats what these newsgroups were for. 😉