Color Management | Converting a Color Profile

By converting a color profile, the color numeric numbers change. Converting your color profile permanently moves your image into that color space. It is the last step prior to saving the file for print.

Edit menu > Convert to Profile.

Under Destination Space, choose the color profile to which you want to convert the document’s colors. Under Conversion Options, specify an engine and a rendering intent.

Toggle on the Preview option. Click OK.

What is a rendering intent?

A rendering intent is a method or set of instructions for mapping or translating color values from one color space to another, generally when converting from a color space with a larger gamut to one with a smaller gamut.

Absolute Colorimetric:

Leaves colors that fall inside the destination gamut unchanged. Out-of-gamut colors are clipped. This intent aims to maintain color accuracy at the expense of preserving relationships between colors and is suitable for proofing to simulate the output of a particular device.

Relative Colorimetric:

Compares the extreme highlight of the source color space to that of the destination color space and shifts all colors accordingly. Out-of-gamut colors are shifted to the closest reproducible color in the destination color space. Relative Colorimetric preserves more of the original colors in an image than Perceptual. This is the standard rendering intent for printing in North America and Europe. The Imaging Center’s RIP is also set to use this rendering intent.

Perceptual:

This method may shift all colors slightly in order to retain the tonal and color relationships throughout the image. It may sacrifice absolute color accuracy, but it is good for preserving tonality and natural hues in an image. Good for photographs. This is the standard rendering intent for the Japanese printing industry.

Saturation:

This method maps saturated colors in the source space to fully saturated colors in the destination space at the expense of tonality and color accuracy. This is only good for “business presentation” type applications where bright saturated colors are more important than the exact relationship between colors.

For More Information

Adobe: Color management settings for the best print output
LinkedIn Learning: Understanding Rendering Attempts

Color Management | Assigning a Color Profile

Assign Profile allows you to tag an image with a specified profile or untag an image by removing it. No color numeric conversions are made; it simply applies an interpretation to the numbers in the image.

Edit menu > Assign Profile.

Toggle on the Preview option. You will most likely see the colors shift on screen.

In the Assign Profile dialog box you will see three options:

Don’t Color Manage This Document
Removes the existing profile from the document. After you remove the profile from a document, the appearance of colors is defined by the application’s working space profiles.

Working [color model: working space]
Assigns the working space profile to the document.

Profile
Selecting this option allows you to toggle between different color profiles. Adobe assigns the new profile to the document without actually converting colors to the profile space. This may dramatically change the appearance of the colors as displayed on your monitor.

Examples of Different Profiles

Notice in the examples below – how the colors appear richer or duller depending on which profile you are assigning the image.

sRGB

sRGB is a color space that defines a range of colors that can be displayed on-screen and in print. It is the most widely used color space and is supported by most operating systems, software programs, monitors, and printers

Adobe RGB (1998)

The Adobe RGB color space is a color space developed by Adobe in 1998. It was designed to encompass most of the colors achievable on CMYK color printers, but by using RGB primary colors on a device such as a computer display

ProPhoto RGB

The ProPhoto RGB color space is an output referred RGB color space developed by Kodak. It offers an especially large gamut designed for use with photographic output in mind. Most printers cannot achieve some colors of this gamut and may not print as bright.

CMYK

The CMYK color model is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. CMYK refers to the four ink plates used in some color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key

For More Information

LinkedIn Learning: Understanding Color Management
Adobe: Keeping Colors Consistent

Color Management | An Introduction

The print process starts as soon as you create a file. It is a good idea to set your color preferences before starting to work. A color space is a range of possible colors.

The IC works in both an Adobe RGB 1998 and U.S. Web Coated CMYK (SWOP) v2 color space.

What is a Color Space?

A color space in general is a set of colors that has been defined in some way. Typically they are colors that a given device is able to display or print.

The set of all the colors that can be found in a given color space is called its gamut. If a color is outside of this range and thus for example cannot be displayed or printed, we say it is out of the gamut

How to Change your Color Settings

Photoshop - Color Management | Prepress 2

How to Change your Color Settings in Photoshop

Edit menu > Color Settings
Settings > North America Prepress 2

Do not change the color space by toggling between RGB and CMYK via Image menu > Mode. You will lose critical pixel data by using this method.

How to Change your Color Settings in Adobe Bridge

It’s good practice to synchronize your color settings in Adobe Bridge.

With Bridge open, do the following:

Edit menu > Color Settings
North America Prepress 2 > Apply

For More Information

Adobe: Keeping Color Consistent
Linkedin Learning: Understanding Color Management

Quick Tip #1

To streamline the printing process, please combine multiple like-sized PDF (or .jpg) files into one single PDF file.

Option 1

File > Create > Combine Files into a Single PDF

Please note, the Imaging Center cannot print a PDF portfolio.

Option 2

Select the Add Files button in the left-hand corner of the Combine Files dialog box. In this dialog box, you will be able to select additional files to be included in the combined PDF.

You can drag and drop files to make sure that the files are in the correct page order.

Select the largest file size via the icons within the Options menu located in the center of the dialog box.

Select Combine.

Video Tutorial

IC Quick Tip | Combining Multiple Files into a Single PDF file

Convert Color to Grayscale in Photoshop

In order to qualify for black & white pricing on the plotter printer (Epson T5270D), your image must first be converted to grayscale. If your image is submitted in color, you will be charged for the color price.

For the best results, you should always work from a duplicate file. You don’t want to toggle back and forth between different color spaces (especially on an original file) as you can lose critical pixel data.

Before converting images, it’s best to do the following:

Do as much editing as possible in the original color mode
Save a backup copy before converting. Be sure to save a copy of your image that includes all layers so that you can edit the original version of the image after the conversion.
Flatten the file before converting it. The interaction of colors between layer blending modes changes when the mode changes.

Open file in Photoshop

Image menu > Mode > Grayscale

Click Discard

Photoshop converts the colors in the image to black, white, and shades of gray.

NOTE: The technique above minimizes file size but discards color information and can convert adjacent colors to the exact same shade of gray. Using a Black & White adjustment layer increases file size but retains color information, letting you map colors to shades of gray.

For more information, check out

helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/converting-color-modes.html

Convert Color to Grayscale in Illustrator

In order to qualify for black & white pricing on the plotter printer (Epson T5270D), your image must first be converted to grayscale. If your image is submitted in color, you will be charged for the color price.

For the best results, you should always work from a duplicate file. Illustrator preserves editing capabilities but to keep yourself organized, it’s in best practice to save a separate grayscale IC print file.

Open file in Illustrator

Select all of the objects whose colors you want to convert.

To select all objects in a file, choose

Select > All. (To deselect all objects, choose Select > Deselect)

Don’t forget to unlock all layers & objects on your artboard!

Object menu > Unlock All

Edit menu > Edit Colors > Convert To Grayscale

NOTE: Use the Edit > Edit Colors > Adjust Colors command to convert objects to grayscale and adjust the shades of gray at the same time.

Your Illustrator file is now ready to save as a PDF file! Happy printing 🙂

For more information, check out

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/adjusting-colors.html

Convert Color to Grayscale in Adobe Acrobat

In order to qualify for black & white pricing on the plotter printer (Epson T5270D), your image must first be converted to grayscale. If your image is submitted in color, you will be charged for the color price.