What is "Proof Colors" option for?

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
July 15, 2011
2 replies
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In PS CS4, under View, there's Proof Setup, which allows you to view soft proofing, so you can set it for your lab's profiles, so you know about how it will be printed.

However, underneath Proof Setup, is "Proof Colors". What is that for? It's only off/on, no other settings for that. It can't be, that the Proof Setup is turning the "Proof Colors" on or off so you can see how the lab will print it, because the colors change whether "Proof Colors" is checked or not. However, when it's UNCHECKED, and I go into change a potential Proof Colors choice (say from my lab's profile to Nikon's profile), the color of the photo changes, and the Proof Color now has a check in front of it.

So....what's that for, and how do you work that?

Noel Carboni

Legend

It allows you to simulate what your image would look like if interpreted directly in the color space you set, rather than transformed using its profile and a device's profile. It can also provide you a preview of CMYK color separations.

View - Proof Setup sets the profile you want to simulate or "test" with, and checking Proof Colors enables the "test", overriding normal display color management. Proof Colors is automatically checked (enabled) when you set a profile in Proof Setup as a convenience feature.

You would normally want to use Photoshop with Proof Colors UNchecked, so that the colors ARE automatically transformed to those needed by your monitor per its profile. This helps ensure that you'll see them accurately.

Photoshop's Help facility has some additional detail for this.

-Noel

T

TerryLn22Author

Inspiring

Well this is truly annoying. When Proof Colors is checked, I think I'm good to go. Then a few photos and 1 hour later, I find out it's turned itself off, and I have to redo all the work. You have to remember to turn it on for each and every photo. That's ridiculous.

Is there some way to lock it in on or off position? I don't see a way to do that.

Noel Carboni

Legend

Noel,

Thanks for the interest.

My monitor is calibrated, in fact, I'm using an Eizo CG 221, tough to beat my monitor.

Let's say I shoot a wedding, or family portraits. I get an order for 10 prints or whatever. I downloaded the lab's profiles, and using the Proof Colors option within Photoshop, I can see how the prints will come out from the lab, and tweak them as I see fit, according to the lab's output profiles and how the lab will print them.

But if I pull up 10 images, check the Proof Colors to come on, I think I'm good to go. I tweak the first photo, save the changes, close it. I then do the same for the next 7 photos, until it dawns on me, that the Proof Colors turned itself off; you have to turn it on for each photo.

I guess if that's the way it is, and there's no way to leave it on all the time, then so be it. I'll live with it. If there's a way it can stay on all the time, until I manually turn it off, that'd be better.

Thanks.

jeff

Does the lab give you instructions about what profile to provide the images in?

To the best of my knowledge, what Proof Colors buys you is a direct interpretation of the RGB values in your image as though it's already in the profile you've selected for proofing. In other words, the lab isn't expected to interpret the RGB values using any color profile you provide, but rather just print the image in their color profile as though you've already converted it.

Does your lab provide detailed instructions for how to prep the images? Specifically, do they say to provide the images in their own profile?

It seems to me that, if I've gotten things right about what your lab needs, then you can accomplish what you want by converting your images to the lab's profile (Edit - Convert To Profile) in Photoshop, then edit them with Proof Colors turned off. This will correctly interpret the document colors for display on your monitor, and should leave the images all prepped perfectly for print on their system.

Do you see any holes in this logic?

-Noel