ICC profiles

ahh, the dreaded PC color management issue....just when you think it's right on the money, your grays are all green!

Does anybody know an ICC profile that will work with a RIP program (i.e. Wasatch SoftRIP) AND photoshop 6 on WIN 2000?

Or where I might be able to find out more info about ICCs for PC platform?

Or, am I crazy...(don't answer that!)

thanks

You said it, PC color managment "sucks"....

ok, perhaps you didn't say that, ...but it does.

You create ICC profiles to make your "monitor" preview accurate color.... not to aid in printing accurate color.

the photoshop "help" files read...

Your monitor will display color more reliably if you use color management and accurate ICC profiles. The Adobe Gamma utility, which is automatically installed into your Control Panels folder, lets you calibrate and characterize your monitor to a standard and then save the settings as an ICC-compliant profile available to any program that uses your color management system. This calibration helps you eliminate any color cast in your monitor, make your monitor grays as neutral as possible, and standardize image display across different monitors.

Although Adobe Gamma is an effective calibration and profiling utility, hardware-based utilities are more precise. If you have a hardware-based utility that can generate an ICC-compliant profile, you should use that instead of Adobe Gamma. Also, be sure to use only one calibration utility to display your profile; using multiple utilities can result in incorrect color.


Its a shame Microsoft hasn't adopted the MAC OS's Colorsync
color managment, I have depended on it for years.

also from the help files:

Photoshop offers a collection of predefined color management settings designed to produce consistent color for a common publishing workflow, such as preparation for Web or offset press output. In most cases, the predefined settings will provide sufficient color management for your needs. These settings can also serve as starting points for customizing your own workflow-specific settings.

To choose a predefined color management setting, choose one of the following options from the Settings menu in the Color Settings dialog box.

Color Management Off Uses passive color management techniques to emulate the behavior of applications that do not support color management. Although working space profiles are considered when converting colors between color spaces, Color Management Off does not tag documents with profiles. Use this option for content that will be output on video or as on-screen presentations; do not use this option if you work mostly with documents that are tagged with color profiles.

Emulate Photoshop 4 Emulates the color workflow used by the Mac OS version of Adobe Photoshop 4.0 and earlier.

U.S. Prepress Defaults Manages color for content that will be output under common press conditions in the U.S.

Europe Prepress Defaults Manages color for content that will be output under common press conditions in Europe.

Japan Prepress Defaults Manages color for content that will be output under common press conditions in Japan.

Web Graphics Defaults Manages color for content that will be published on the World Wide Web.

ColorSync Workflow (Mac OS only) Manages color using the ColorSync CMS with the profiles chosen in the ColorSync control panel. Use this option if you want to use color management with a mix of Adobe and non-Adobe applications. This color management configuration is not recognized by Windows systems, or by versions of ColorSync earlier than 3.0.

When you choose a predefined configuration, the Color Settings dialog box updates to display the specific color management settings associated with the configuration.


I think it will help you alot to read the "Producing Consistent Color" section of the help files.... then experiment...

I suggest going with the "U.S. Prepress Defaults"

hope this helps.