No proof setup in Elements, Basil, and no "convert to profile" either, which would be a useful tool for utilizing the media profiles . With the market growing for this type service, I’d hope the future would bring those capabilities.
I was playing around the other day and found that if I change my monitors profile I can then save an image with that profile …. could you use that as a workaround for convert to profile?
Interesting thought, Wendy ! I suspect not, but the only way to tell for sure is to see if you can set your monitor profile to a ink/media profile and save it. That would be a cool workaround, though maybe a little more convoluted process than we’ve like. Are you talking on a MAC, now, or a PC ?
Thank you Brent and Wendy. I will try it anyway without checking the printer profiles and see the results. Hopefully will be close. I will let you know.
I wish you luck, Basil. I think Wendy’s method has some potential, but I’m not at all certain whether the profile is being "assigned" ( which we do NOT want ) or "converted" ( which is what we DO want ). If the image appears the same , then I’d say a conversion is taking place, if the image changes its appearance, then an "Assign Profile" has taken place. I’m also open to the possibility that nothing at all happens, but appears to happen via the marvels of computing. Be a lot easier if Elements simply allowed us to "convert to profile".
Wendy, When you "Assign" a profile to an image, the colors are "re-interpretted" on the screen according to the new colorspace definition ( but the RGB numbers which define each pixel do not change ) . When you "convert" an image from one profile to another profile, the image on the display should change very little if at all but the RGB numbers defining each pixel will change to reflect the appearance in the new colorspace. Your newfound discovery of using a different profile for your monitor and saving the image with that profile imbedded, doesn’t give us enough info to know what is happening either. I suspect it is simply "assigning " the profile, but I don’t have any factual basis to be certain. It’s a very easy subject to get confused over.
One should never assign or convert an image to a monitor profile. That’s a guarantee for disaster.
Your monitor profile is only there to ensure that your monitor is giving you an accurate representation of your image as described by the color space with which it is tagged or by your working space if the image is untagged (i. e. if it has no profile embedded).
=====
Brent,
If your image is already tagged, you should honor the embedded profile when opening. Unless you plan to add more colors (i. e. by increasing the saturation of the image later on), there is no further need to assign or convert to a different profile.
If the image is not tagged, then you should open it "as is" and then immediately arrive at a best guess of what color profile it was created in by Assigning various profiles until you find the profile in which it looks more realistic. Once you found it, you should then Convert to that profile.
The difference is that "Assigning" gives you a temporary view (as if you were placing a certain "color filter" over the image), and "Converting" embeds that profile, i. e. it "tags" the image. They are complementary procedures.
Conversely, you don’t ever want to assign or embed (convert) a paper profile into an image. You select the very specific ink/paper/printer profile when sending the image to the printer so that the conversion engine (your application or your printer’s driver, as the case may be) knows what conversion to use for printing.
If you had the full version of Photoshop, you would also use media (paper) profiles in Soft Proof View to get an accurate representation of what the image is going to look like in print once the conversion engine performs its magic with that particular profile in sending it to the printer.
Ramon, I agree with you, wholeheartedly, but we were looking for a "backdoor" way to convert an image to a media profile for an offsite printer, a fuji , for example . Elements lack of the "convert to profile" command makes this a perhaps impossible task. We were toying with the possibilites beyond Wendy’s discovery vis a vis her ability to assign various profiles to her monitor. Why don’t you hang around here more often, you may not know Elements, but your experience would be valuable.
we were looking for a "backdoor" way to convert an image to a media profile for an offsite printer, a fuji , for example .
Ah, if you meant temporarily assign (and later Undo) a media profile to an image to try to approximate Photoshop’s Soft Proof View, that wouldn’t work either.
Let me try to explain it this way: what the Soft Proof View function of the full version of Photoshop does is to provide a preview of what the print will look like on that very specific, device-dependant ink/paper/printer combination by retaining (and starting from) the embedded color space profile with which the image is tagged and perform a color conversion (for previewing only) from the embedded color space to the expected ink/paper/printer combination. This does not affect the image itself at all, only what you see on your monitor.
If, on the contrary, you "convert an image to a media profile for an offsite printer" (a BIG no-no), you are in effect removing the color space in which the image was created and telling both the monitor and the printer to treat the colors as if the image had been created in a color space identical to the device-dependant ink/paper/printer profile. Not only does that mess up the colors instantaneously, but it leads to a second conversion to the same device dependant ink/paper/printer profile when you send it to the printer, thereby compounding the errors exponentially.
Try thinking of it this way: Imagine your image is a text document in a foreign language. The profile with which it is tagged (Adobe RGB, sRGB, whatever) simply tells you which language the text was created in so you can take it to the appropriate translator to decipher it (the color conversion engine) using that specific information.
Your monitor profile is nothing more than the prescription glasses you need to read the finished translation.
Your media profiles simply tell the printer (imagine the printer is a typesetter) what typefaces and conventions to use to print a hard copy version of your document.
Obviously, if your image is untagged, i. e. does not have an embedded profile, it’s like if you did not know what language the text in your fictional document is in. If I see a word like "Gift" but I don’t know what language it’s in, I don’t know whether to treat it as a poison (Gift is German for poison) or as a present (gift in English). Another example would be "once", which means "eleven" in Spanish and "one time" in English. You just have to make your best guess, and that’s where "assign" comes in (full version of Photoshop) so you can try different color spaces to see which one looks more realistic or reasonable. Shame on the creator of the image for not embedding a profile.
Bottom line, start with an accurate monitor profile (your prescription glasses), honor the embedded profile in the image (pay attention to what language your text is in) or make an educated guess if the image is untagged, and only use media profiles (instructions to the printer) when sending the document to the printer.
Once again, thank you for adding your excellent post. Your time and effort in repeating what must be "old hat" to you is appreciated and recognized. The subject of Color Management is indeed a bit confusing. I have recently purchased PSCS and am studying hard to truly understand the Color Management workflow (especially since the full version of PS offers so many more choices). Your presence here is much valued.
As far as I can see, doing what Wendy sugests is indeed assigning rather than converting – the image colour changes as you change the monitor profile. In the absence of CS, for Mac Elements users the solution may lie in using one of the apple scripts included in the library/colorsync/applescripts folder – it includes embed a profile, match a profile and proof to profile scripts – I’m not sure which is appropriate. I’ve used the remove profile script with success in the past.
I’ve also found that if you edit in sRGB (which is what the Frontier expects to receive) you get pretty good results, even without profiling if the operator knows their job and you carefully explain that the images have edited already in photoshop and shouldn’t be fiddled with further !- there isn’t a profiled frontier machine within several thousand miles of me, even though I do have CS!
Susan, "even without profiling if the operator knows their job and you carefully explain that the images have edited already in photoshop and shouldn’t be fiddled with further " . <G> There’s the rub to having someone else do your prints, I think. Whether or not you convert to the correct profile, the operator can negate your hard work by having the machine setup incorrectly for your needs. A photo artist on the Photoshop forum ( Carol , who was a forum host from the UK ) was frequently praising her local printer ( with a Fuji ) for his willingness to work with her on her print jobs . Finding the right operator is a real key.
