Assigning color profile, correct method?

[serifina7]

I have never been asked to change color profiles before. A client wants InDesign set to North America Prepress 2 with images in Adobe RGB (1998). What is the correct way to do this? I'm unclear on the differences between Color Settings, Assign Profile and Convert to Profile in InDesign. I have already set the image color profile in Photoshop. 

[rob day]

The Color Settings handles your color preferences for future documents. An existing document’s native colors and swatches are color managed by the assigned profiles (Edit>Assign Profiles), which could be different than the Color Settings’ Working RGB and CMYK profiles. If the InDesign document has no profile assignments the fallback is to use the current Color Settings. 

If your placed images have embedded profiles, the embedded profile is used to manage the image, otherwise the fallback is the InDesign document’s assigned profile, and if there is no document profile, the Color Settings’ Working Spaces are used. Placed RGB images should always have an embedded profile because the source profile is needed to make the final conversion to CMYK.

[serifina7]

Thanks, this is very helpful. When would you use convert to profile vs assign profile?

[rob day · Accepted solution]

Convert to Profile only affects native InDesign colors and swatches (placed objects or images are not converted). Assign profile affects native colors, and images with no embedded profile.

Assigning a new profile doesn’t change the colors’ output values, but the color’s soft proof preview appearance might change because of the new assignment. 

Convert to Profile changes the native colors’ output values and assigns the new profile, which normally maintains the colors’ soft proof appearance.