Participating Frequently

Question

How to match image colors to printers ICC profile?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
September 27, 2021
7 replies
5312 views

I have an otherwise finished image that I need to color/tone/brightness match to a printers ICC profile while soft proofing. The ICC profile was provided by the company I have make my prints.

Basically, I work under Working CMYK and the printers ICC profile is custom to their equipment. When soft proofing under their profile, there's some significant changes to color/brightness/contrast/etc. that I want to change to bring the proof view version of the image back into line with my Working CMYK view version. Once that's done, I can switch off the proof view, save the edited image, and send that version to the printer so it hopefully matches better with what's seen on my monitor in my finished image.

The problem is I'm struggling to match the aforementioned details by hand. I have to work within the same tab, so I can't use Match Color to just match the colors up, which is probably prevented anyway by the proof view not really being "applied" to the underlying image, I.E. when editing it's the characteristics of the underlying image (my finished version) which are being changed, not the characteristics seen in the proof view.

Is there an easier way to do this? How do you match an images characteristics when soft proofing on an ICC profile like this? I'm at a loss and I've already spent many hours trying to find a solution.

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

L

Lumigraphics

Legend

Well thank you for the regurgitated ChatGPT response. :eyeroll:

M

Muhammad Rika363455840pt9

Participant

To match image colors to a printer's ICC profile, follow these steps:

Calibrate Monitor: Ensure your monitor is calibrated to display colors accurately.
Assign ICC Profile: Assign the printer's ICC profile to the image in your editing software.
Soft Proofing: Use soft proofing to preview how the colors will appear when printed.
Adjust Colors: Make adjustments to the image as needed to match the printer's ICC profile.
Print Test Samples: Print test samples to fine-tune color accuracy.
Iterate if Necessary: Repeat the process until the printed colors closely match the desired result.

PECourtejoie

Community Expert

I wanted to add that I think that it is possible to open a new window of the image, set it next to the other one. (Windows>Arrange) and to set proof view on that new one, IIRC.

R

ricardop64721395

Participating Frequently

This is very helpful and the best way of doing this!

Thank you!

josephlavine

Community Expert

As others have stated, going from CMYK to CMYK is not ideal as CMYK is such a small color space. It is better to go from a larger RGB to CMYK as you have more information during the conversion.

warmly/j

R

ricardop64721395

Participating Frequently

Hi Joseph, allowed me to bring this discussion back to life few years later and join this discussion with a question.

I'm reading more and more about this idea of keeping things in RGB and only converting at the printing stage to cmyk or to the icc profile of the printer. I'm wondering though if this is a way of doing more appropriate for photographers and or designers working with images/photos? Or if this also is the right way of doing if you are a graphic designer working mainly with typefaces and colors. Because in this case, if you start creating color combinations in RGB for something you will need to print in cmyk later, there 100% chance of you being super disappointed and losing most of the colors you choose to work with.

So in this case, when not working with photos, start with RGB does make sense?

Thank you in advance,

Ricardo.

D Fosse

Community Expert

Correct, for a graphic designer or illustrator it will often be necessary to work in CMYK from the start. The main reason is overprinting black, which has to be created in the K channel right off. And then it's obviously critical to know which CMYK profile to use.

Overprinting K can be text over other colors, or things like e.g. comic book illustrations where contours lie on top of the colors. You don't want 4 color blacks for this, since they knock out the underlying color and may be out of registration.

Graphic designers and illutrators won't be using Photoshop. They'll use InDesign and Illustrator.

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

Converting CMYK to CMYK is NOT ideal.

For that reason I recommend you either convert straight from RGB to the actual CMYK to be used (converting a copy of course) - OR supply RGB if possible. By all means [pre conversion] soft proof [with ink black checked] to the actual printer's CMYK ICC - to assess the changes you might see in print, and, whilst soft proofing, is active: work to optimise the RGB image, so that you like the soft proofed appearance. IF the CMYK profile provides an accurate preview of the press perfoarmace, you should see a good match to your CALIBRATED and PROFILED display screen.

Your display screen is CALIBRATED and PROFILED isn't it?

The gamut restriction of most CMYK processes means that you may lose detail in very saturated areas, pay attention to this and try perhaps to reduce saturation (possibly in specific colour ranges) of your original to make it "printable". Gamut warning will reveal the areas that are going to be changed significantly in the eventual conversion to device CMYK.

NEVER soft proof to "monitor RGB" [nor use the monitors RGB profile as a working colour space].

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
[please only use the blue reply button at the top of the page, this maintains the original thread title and chronological order of posts]

P

Psychoses ArtAuthor

Participating Frequently

Honestly, I'm not even sure what was really happening anymore. My images are all in the Adobe RGB 1998 color space, the only real issue appears to have been that I should have switched Photoshop's default proof view to match that a long time ago.

"Your display screen is CALIBRATED and PROFILED isn't it?"

Not really, and I'm not sure there's much I can do about that. I just have a generic Dell monitor, not a BenQ or anything like that. I suppose I can pick up a monitor calibrator and try it, but I don't know how much good it'll do. I have run through the calibration and color settings before to check for any serious flaws, but as stated this is unfortunatly not a professional quality monitor.

As stated in another comment, I checked the gamut warning and there really wasn't much of an issue. The problem is the prints came out with a green cast, among other issues such as the blacks not being true blacks (which I've gotten from them before, and I pulled hex numbers for the blacks/whites/greys from these two images and the images for previous prints, and they're not far off.) so I still haven't figured out why these images in particular are giving me such a hard time when everything else has gone very well.

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

Without a calibrated and profiled display, you are almost literally shooting in the dark. You can improve the Dell panel using, say, an X-rite i1displayPro device and software. You're right it's not a "pro" imaging screen, but it should be pretty good for colour and tone once set up right - i.e. calibrated and profiled. I prefer basICColor display for this but it IS an extra cost.

There have been reported uniformity issues with some Dell screens - i.e. with a plain grey desktop image, they can appear a bit blotchy. If that’s not bothering you then its worth taking the calibrated and profiled step, IMO.

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

If you have an RGB version, stick with it and convert a copy to the printer's CMYK.

If you only have your working CMYK version, duplicate that, then you can convert to printer CMYK and adjust, or convert to RGB and softproof and adjust before finally ending by converting to the printer CMYK if they don't accept RGB.

What is your working CMYK profile and what is the printer output profile?

P

Psychoses ArtAuthor

Participating Frequently

I'll be perfectly honest, I was never very familiar with the various proofing profiles until now. It just hasn't been an issue before. My working CMYK profile is whatever comes stock with Photoshop, and the printer profile is custom made by the print shop themselves. The images are exported as .png files in the Adobe RGB 1998 color space becasue that's the print shops preferred color space.

And not that it matters, but for reference these are photographs edited with Photoshop, not any sort of graphic design project. The prints are fine art prints on aluminum.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

I think that I understand you better now... :]

The file is RGB with an assigned or assumed working ICC of Adobe RGB 1998. You are using softproof to view the result using the printer's custom CMYK profile, while maintaining the Adobe RGB 1998 file.

D Fosse

Community Expert

If the changes yous see are caused by gamut clipping there is no magic trick. Clipped data are gone. The point of soft proofing is to get a preview so that you can compensate within the limits of the target profile. That's the whole point. Those are the limits have to live with and work around.

However, I think you're going about this the wrong way. If you're going to work in CMYK, you absolutely need to start off with the correct CMYK profile right away. CMYK to CMYK conversions should always be avoided for a large number of reasons.

First of all your source CMYK profile will probably have gamut limitations where the target profile doesn't. So you've unnecessarily lost those data. There may also be different ink limits, again unnecessarily throwing out data.

Second, K-only components in your document, such as overprinting text, will be converted to four-color blacks.

There is nothing special about Photoshop's working CMYK. It's just a default CMYK profile because there has to be some default. In this case it's US Web Coated (SWOP) v2, which has no relevance outside the Americas. "Working CMYK" does not mean it's some kind of ideal, generic CMYK color space that somehow contains all the others. It's just a profile like any other, and in most cases it's the wrong one.

In short, work in RGB and keep your master files RGB. Then when the print process/CMYK profile is known, make a copy and soft proof to get a preview and compensate where possible. Then convert the copy and ship.

P

Psychoses ArtAuthor

Participating Frequently

I do get a gamut warning on one image when viewing it through the printers proofing profile, but I have no idea how to interpret it. Switching on Gamut Warning just makes a few mid-tone sections darker, not a big deal if that's a representation of the effect it's going to have on the print. Problem is I already had that particular image printed and it came out with a noticeable green cast (the image was black/white with a very light pastel/steel blue tint), amid other issues. The two images I'm working on right now present the most severe changes I have yet to observe out of all the images I've tested with the printers proofing profile, the other images being ones I've printed with them in the past so I can compare the actual prints to the preview. For some reason these two in particular are fighting me.

What proof setup should I generally use then while working, Monitor RGB? The image mode is always in 8-bit RGB, and the finished files are exported as .png's in the Adobe RGB 1998 color space.

For reference these are fine art prints of digital photographs edited with Photoshop. I primarily print on aluminum.

P

Psychoses ArtAuthor

Participating Frequently

To add, I just tried switching my proof view from Working CMYK to Monitor RGB on the aforementioned image with the bluish tint, and Monitor RGB totally wipes out the tint, making the image truly black and white. Further, comparing previous prints to the the Monitor RGB and Working CMYK proof views, the Working CMYK view appears to be more color-accurate than Monitor RGB. Maybe I'm not understanding something here, but wouldn't this mean I should stick with Working CMYK or something similar, rather than an RGB based proof profile?

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded