PhotoShop CS3 Color Management on the Macintosh
I have been a Corel PhotoPaint user for several years. I like what it does, but unfortunately, Corel decided not to continue its development of the Macintosh version. And, I’m not about to buy a new machine simply to continue using the program.
There have been some problems that are not going to fixed. The program actually improved in some aspects when I upgraded my OS from Panther to Tiger. But sooner or later, I felt that I would run into trouble. It was time to start using PhotoShop CS3 and I took advantage of a special upgrade offered by Adobe.
The problem with changing software with the complexities of these two programs is the learning curve involved in the new one and the shock of leaving the comfort of the old one. I still find that I get frustrated with PhotoShop and revert to PhotoPaint for some operations.
My first print from CS3 did not match my screen presentation very well. The print was correct, but the screen did not match. The print and screen matched very well in PhotoPaint. With CS3, the print was darker than the screen.
The advice I read about setting up color in PhotoShop was not helpful. I used the method I had been using all along with PhotoPaint. This is my preferred method, since what I see on the screen is a very close match to the printed result.
The setup in PhotoShop CS3 is clumsy, but it works. To implement, you need to set values under the Edit/Color Settings and View/Proof Setup menus as well and in the print dialog.
First, in the “Color Settings” under the Edit Menu item, I modified the “North American General Purpose 2” setting and saved the result under a new name. The main thing here is to set the system color profile. I took the softer easier way and used sRGB.
Next, I set up a custom proof condition under View/Proof Setup. This is set with the printer profile of the target paper or canvas. Here, I used a profile for Breathing Color canvas. My rendering intent was set to Relative Colorimetric and black point compensation was checked. The custom setting was saved as R2400 Canvas. Each of my papers will have their own custom proof setting.
Then when I toggled View/Proof Colors on (cmd-Y), the screen presentation matched the print. Since I didn’t want to toggle the Proof Color for each document, I made an action to do the toggle and automated the action so whenever I open a document or create a new document I have this default to checked.
The next step is the print dialog. Of course, set the proper printer, and do the page setup from this dialog. The choices for color setup are “Document” or “Proof.” Make certain you have the proper Printer Profile selected and select “PhotoShop Manages Color”. If you use “Proof,” be sure to set the proper Proof Setup.
“Document” works fine. But, Proof also works when the correct proof setup is chosen. The setup is shown below.
The result is I can expect that my prints will now match my screen.
I’m missing some way to show the current proof setup without resorting to the menu. Perhaps, I’ll be able to make a script that will give a menu of the various proof settings at a key press.
by Brian McCorkle
in category Technical Stuff
