[chasg]

Hi All,

I'm working hard through colour issues and printing. I should say right up front that I'm working with a printer hardware calibration device, and I'm trying to eliminate all variables involved to getting a consistent colour workflow.

One variable remaining is the ColorSync section of the OSX 10.2.3/Epson printing dialog box (I've got a screenshot here: http://www.zen7370.zen.co.uk/photos/...r_dialog-1.gif).

The key point is the Color Conversion drop down menu: the choices are "Standard" and...that's it.

If I'm using Photoshop and custom colour profiles, and I want only Photoshop to be working with colour, how I do prevent ColorSync from interfering?

Thanks in advance for any help

Chas

[aaanorton]

Instead of ColorSync, select Color Management from the menu. In there choose No Color Adjustment. Assuming you have set the options correctly in the PS print dialog, all color management will be done by PS like this. You can do it either way, but you can't do both, so you're headed in the right direction.

[Macola]

i could have sworn I posted the same advice...oh wait, you cross-posted this in the OS X forum.

Never mind.

[X-Ray]

To insure that I'm using the correct profile I always use the Print Preview menu rather than the regular Print menu to print from.

[chasg]

All good advice everyone, and much appreciated, but those issues are not what I'm concerned with (I already follow those procedures, but thanks).

I need to point out though, that it is the specific "Colorsync" section of the print dialog that I'm questioning, not the "Color Management" section of the print dialog.

Even if I choose "No Color Adjustment" in the "Color Management" section of the print dialog, there is no change to the choice in the "ColorSync" section (the choice there is still set to "Standard"). This makes me think that ColorSync is still involved, even though I've made all the choices that will have Photoshop do all the colour management.

I'm thankful for the advice, but I'm still curious about the issue at hand. Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks

Chas

ps. Macola, I accept the gentle rebuke about cross posting, I just didn't know under which single area to post this

[aaanorton]

It's not doing anything.
In Color Management, if you select ColorSync, those settings will apply. However, you choose No Color Adjustment, so you need not worry.

[Macola]

Originally posted by chasg:
Macola, I accept the gentle rebuke about cross posting, I just didn't know under which single area to post this

No problem, it wasn't intended as a rebuke. I thought my brain was playing tricks on me again.

As aaanorton said, the color conversion settings don't do anything if you have disabled ColorSync under Color management. BTW, I had similar problems with color shifts using a PDF workflow (i.e., not printing directly from Photoshop). If you have any experience with fixing those issues, I'd like to hear your suggestions.

[chasg]

thanks for the confirmation on how to ensure that ColorSync is not applied :-)

Macola, I'm afraid that I haven't worked closely enough with PDFs to give you good advice (I _have_ used PDFs with printing bureaus, but I have to confess that I just hoped for the best by sending in a proof print as well, and getting them to make the necessary adjustments prior to printing :-/

Thanks again for setting my mind at ease, All!

Chas

[memyselfandimac]

Originally posted by chasg:
thanks for the confirmation on how to ensure that ColorSync is not applied :-)

Macola, I'm afraid that I haven't worked closely enough with PDFs to give you good advice (I _have_ used PDFs with printing bureaus, but I have to confess that I just hoped for the best by sending in a proof print as well, and getting them to make the necessary adjustments prior to printing :-/

Thanks again for setting my mind at ease, All!

Chas

As a late note to this thread when you print from photo shop use " print with preview" instead of regular print and you will get a dialog allowing you to select color managment from the sub menu there, you can then define monitor/ files profile as well as the output device/paper profile for your epson. The paper profiles for my 825photo don't seem to work correctly since PhotoshopCS so I just use the "825 Standard" , your mileage may vary.
Then when you get to final print dialog if you select to use color sync all the info will be sent to printer that here is what your viewing on screen with, here is the printer output profile to convert to.... make them match.

A fairly accurate comp can save you few extra proofs if your output provider has at least a rough idea what your shooting for. CMYK vs RGB output are very tricky and how you handle them are dif. CMYK files should usually be sent untagged and should only be controlled by the output devices. But you should always veiw on screen using the appropriate CMYK profile for the media you are producing, ie, going to a offset press, use a CMYK file/monitor profile for coated or uncoated stock. WYSIWYG

It's confusing and mind boggling for sure, but I can't tell you the numbers of times we get files from clients and send them a proof back and they complain that it doesn't match whats on their monitors or their comps. Ask them what what profiles/settings they use for monitors/files/devices and 60% haven't got a clue and will even vary from one individual to the next in the same agency sometimes. We explain that cmyk offset printing can't match that RGB monitor color, it's not within cmyk gamut to reproduce that color, have them on phone and tell them to pull up file, switch to proofing on screen using a cmyk printing profile and auto-magically it sort/kinda/almost matches our proof.

Lots of times we get RGB files with no embedded profile, we can only take a wild guess at what monitor profile they where using to veiw the file and most time that guess is wrong.
So we go through all the shipping proofs back and forth if the cleint is not in town, missing deadlines, and above all charging cleint for all these color corrections/alterations.

But PDF softproofing has made life a lot easier if we can get the clients to set up acrobat to simulate the intended output.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by memyselfandimac:
As a late note to this thread when you print from photo shop use " print with preview" instead of regular print and you will get a dialog allowing you to select color managment from the sub menu there, you can then define monitor/ files profile as well as the output device/paper profile for your epson. The paper profiles for my 825photo don't seem to work correctly since PhotoshopCS so I just use the "825 Standard" , your mileage may vary.
Then when you get to final print dialog if you select to use color sync all the info will be sent to printer that here is what your viewing on screen with, here is the printer output profile to convert to.... make them match.

This is incorrect and completely contradictive to what has been posted here so far. Doing this will have PS do one color conversion to your file (as per your description of the Print With Preview dialog) and then send it to ColorSync for a 2nd conversion. A classic mistake. You can either have PS, ColorSync or the printer do the color conversion, but not more than 1 at a time. If you use Print With Preview, as I do, you are telling PS to do the conversion. In this case, you need to select No Color Adjustment in the Color Management tab of the printer dialog box.
The Print With Preview option came about out of confusion over PS' previous layout. It used to be that PS forced color space/paper profile menus into the printer dialog boxes, resulting in confusion, i.e. it's in the Epson print dialog, but it's actually a PS menu. Now with Print With Preview, it is obvious that the selections you make are still PS selections. You then just have to be sure to disable ALL other color conversion schemes.

[chasg]

hmm, that makes me wonder: I know how to get PS to control colour, I know how to let the printer control colour, but how do I get everything to be controlled by colorsync?

btw: I'm using an all Epson media system at the moment (Epson ink and paper). The Epson colour profiles are working quite nicely (I'm talking about letting PS do the colour work, with Epson profiles). Even B&Ws are coming out neutral (and I haven't even played with the GrayBalancer software yet (not 'till I get my new G5, don't want to tweak an machine that's headed out the door! :-)

[memyselfandimac]

Originally posted by aaanorton:
This is incorrect and completely contradictive to what has been posted here so far. Doing this will have PS do one color conversion to your file (as per your description of the Print With Preview dialog) and then send it to ColorSync for a 2nd conversion. A classic mistake. You can either have PS, ColorSync or the printer do the color conversion, but not more than 1 at a time. If you use Print With Preview, as I do, you are telling PS to do the conversion. In this case, you need to select No Color Adjustment in the Color Management tab of the printer dialog box.
The Print With Preview option came about out of confusion over PS' previous layout. It used to be that PS forced color space/paper profile menus into the printer dialog boxes, resulting in confusion, i.e. it's in the Epson print dialog, but it's actually a PS menu. Now with Print With Preview, it is obvious that the selections you make are still PS selections. You then just have to be sure to disable ALL other color conversion schemes.

This is true, but no where in any of his posts does he specifically state that he is using a PS capable printer. And yes I did mis-speak there, my bad. Only 1 color conversion in any case. If Photoshop has already done the color conversion nothing else should be needed.

But the main point I was trying to make was that sending a inacurate comp along to the service provider is just as bad as sending no comp. If you have photoshop set up correctly, in his case probably Euroscale coated in photoshops color settings and proof setup, not sure what the accepted standard in UK is, and then tell Photoshop to softproof on screen by selecting "proof colors" from the photoshop view menu, then making sure that your printers output fairly well conveys that softproof on it's final output then it's a total waste of time for everyone.

[aaanorton]

Originally posted by chasg:
hmm, that makes me wonder: I know how to get PS to control colour, I know how to let the printer control colour, but how do I get everything to be controlled by colorsync?

You do it in the ColorSync utility, but don't bother with it... The other two methods are far superior, because they are in-line. To use ColorSync, you need to set up the utility 1st, then go to your app and print. I think the best way is to allow PS to do your conversions and disable the rest.

Originally posted by memyselfandimac:
This is true, but no where in any of his posts does he specifically state that he is using a PS capable printer.

PS = Photoshop, not postscript (in this case). Abbrvtns can rly cauz trbls.

[chasg]

thanks for that info. I've played around with the Colorsync Utility but, besides the obvious stuff, haven't yet figured out what everything is for. I never even had an idea that it might actually be a way to control colour like I can in Photoshop's print preview dialog.

It'd be nice to master though, as there are a lot of other apps I'd like to get accurate colour from (right now, I produce a file, open it in Photoshop and print from there)

And yeah, by PS I meant Photoshop, not postscript (been a decade since I had a postscript printer!)

Thanks again,

Chas