WHITE PAPER

Color Consistency and

Adobe Creative Suite
Achieving consistent color across applications has traditionally been problematic. Color manage- TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 The Color Management
ment is the solution to specifying, creating, and reproducing consistent color, and the new color Problem
settings options shared by the Adobe® Creative Suite applications make it easier to implement 1 Device-dependent color
color management across applications than ever before. But to understand the solution, it first 1 The Color Management
helps to understand the problem. Solution
4 The Adobe Common Color
The Color Management Problem Architecture—Overview
6 Calibrating the Monitor
Color management addresses a fundamental problem with the way we use numbers to repre-
7 Setting up a CSF
sent color digitally. The color modes we most often use—RGB and CMYK—don’t specify colors
10 Creating and Importing Color
unambiguously. Rather, they have their roots in the control signals that we send to our color
11 Controlling Color
reproduction devices—displays, desktop printers, or even printing presses—to make them pro-
15 Color and PDF
duce something that we then can see and interpret as color. The problem is that each device will
17 Color Management Workflow
produce a different color when we feed it the same set of RGB or CMYK numbers. So the scanned
image doesn’t look like the original when viewed on screen, and your final printed output doesn’t
look like either the original, or the on-screen rendition.

Windows display

Macintosh display

Inkjet printer

R255 G38 B161 R255 G234 B128 R0 G86 B46 R176 G165 B0 R250 G64 B0 R64 G77 B255

US, sheetfed press,

coated stock

Japan, Web press,

uncoated stock

Newsprint

C100 M100 Y0 K0 C100 M0 Y100 K0 C0 M100 Y100 K0 C0 M0 Y100 K0 C0 M100 Y0 K0 C100 M0 Y0 K0

Why the discrepancy? RGB and CMYK numbers instruct a color reproduction device such as a
display or printer how much of each colorant to use. With displays, RGB numbers tell the display
to fire electron beams of a given strength for the red, green, and blue guns in the case of a CRT,
or the strength of the red, green, and blue filtration in the case of an LCD. With printers, CMYK
numbers tell the printer how much cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink to lay down.

Device-Dependent Color
The actual color that results depends on a host of physical factors. The color produced by a display
in response to a set of RGB numbers depends on both the display’s tonal response and the actual
color of its red, green, and blue phosphors or filters. The color produced by a printer depends on
the color of the paper, the way the paper absorbs ink, and the actual colors of the cyan, magenta,
yellow, and black inks. All these properties vary, sometimes dramatically, from device to device.
One monitor’s red phosphor may be a tomato red while another’s is closer to a fire-engine red.
One printer’s yellow ink may have a greenish cast while another’s tends towards orange. The RGB
and CMYK color modes are often called “device-dependent” or “device-specific” color in recogni-
tion of the fact that the actual color produced by a set of RGB or CMYK numbers is dependent on
the device to which the numbers are sent.

The Color Management Solution

Color management may appear dauntingly complex at first glance, but in actuality, color manage-
ment does only two things:

• Color management attaches a specific color appearance to otherwise ambiguous RGB or CMYK
numbers.

• Color management attempts to preserve that specific color appearance by changing the numbers
to the ones needed by the target device to produce the specified color.

To accomplish this feat, color management uses data files called profiles, and a software engine
usually known as a CMM, or simply as the color management engine. Device profiles describe the
color appearance generated by RGB or CMYK numbers on a specific device—a display, a printer,
a scanner. The color management engine, when asked to perform a conversion, changes the num-
bers that get sent to devices by using the description of the devices’ behavior in the profiles, so that
the color appearance is preserved.

What makes color management possible, however, is a set of mathematical color models that use
numbers to represent the actual color appearance that humans see, rather than the set of instruc-
tions a device needs to produce that color. Because the color specified in these models is unambig-
uous and doesn’t depend on the quirks of any particular color reproduction device, we call such
models “device-independent” color. Since these color models represent the color that we actually
see, they act as a universal translator between different devices’ RGB or CMYK values.

Device-Independent Color
The numerical models used by color management to represent color appearance were developed
by the Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage (CIE), the international standards organization
charged with developing standards for all aspects of lighting. To use color management effectively,
you needn’t concern yourself with the details of these models—they have esoteric names such as
CIE XYZ (1931) and CIE LAB (1976). All you need to understand is that these models represent
the human experience of color—the actual appearance—without reference to the particular recipe
any given device requires to reproduce that color.
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Profiles
Profiles are data files that record the relationship between RGB or CMYK numbers and the color
we actually see. Device profiles describe the behavior of a physical device or class of physical
devices. For example, “Letitia Sanchez’s Epson 2200 Premium Luster.icc” is a profile that describes
the actual perceived colors that Letitia Sanchez’s Epson 2200 printer produces on Premium Luster
paper in response to different RGB values, while “Epson 2200 Premium Luster.icc”—a profile
installed by the Epson driver—describes the average perceived colors that Epson 2200 printers
produce on Premium Luster paper in response to different RGB values. Profiles built for a specific
device are generally referred to as custom profiles, while profiles that describe an entire class of
devices are usually called “generic” profiles.

Some profiles don’t describe the behavior of a physical device. For example, profiles such as sRGB,
or Adobe RGB (1998), simply describe standardized color appearances for RGB values that are not
dependent on the quirks of any particular physical device. They offer idealized environments for
defining and editing RGB color.

Working with Profiles

As mentioned earlier, color management does only two things—specify a color appearance, and
attempt to match that color appearance on different devices. Color management cannot match a
color appearance until that color appearance has been specified. Attaching a profile to a docu-
ment, or an element in a document, simply specifies the color appearance represented by the RGB
or CMYK numbers.

Matching the color appearance requires a conversion from a source profile (which specifies the
color appearance) and a destination or target profile, which supplies the new RGB or CMYK num-
bers required to make the destination device produce the specified color appearance. On request,
the color management engine converts the source RGB or CMYK values to the destination RGB
or CMYK values, so that the color appearance is preserved.

Without
conversion

Matching the color appearance

requires a conversion from a source
profile and a destination or target
profile, to make the destination
device produce the specified color
With appearance.
conversion

Captured image Monitor image Inkjet printer image

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In addition to the source and destination profiles, a conversion also demands specification of a
rendering intent. Rendering intents are simply methods of handling out-of-gamut colors—that
is, colors present in the source that the destination is physically incapable of reproducing. Color
management offers four different rendering intents.

Perceptual rendering fits all the source colors into the color gamut—the range of reproducible
colors—of the destination, preserving the overall relationships between colors, and hence the
overall color appearance. It’s typically used for photographic images that contain important out-
of-gamut colors.

Saturation rendering converts saturated primary colors in the source to saturated primary colors
in the destination, even if the hues are somewhat different. It’s typically used for business graphics
such as charts and graphs.

Relative colorimetric rendering converts white in the source to white in the target—we judge
colors in relation to what we see as white, so prints look “wrong” if the white in the source is
rendered as something other than paper white in the destination—then adjusts all the in-gamut
colors accordingly, and clips out-of-gamut colors to their nearest printable hue. It’s typically used
for flat color such as vector graphics as well as for photographic images that don’t contain impor-
tant out-of-gamut colors.

Absolute colorimetric rendering reproduces the color of the source white in the output. It’s pri-
marily useful for proofing, since it enables side-by-side matching of colors on different stocks such
as glossy and newsprint. For example, if you want to make an inkjet printer emulate newsprint,
absolute colorimetric rendering makes the inkjet lay down some yellow and black ink in the pa-
per-white areas to simulate the grayish-yellow tone of the newsprint as compared to the brighter
white inkjet paper.

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The Adobe Common Color Architecture—Overview
All the Adobe Creative Suite applications share a common architecture for color management.
This makes it easy to ensure that each application handles color consistently, so that your color
displays and prints the same way from all the Creative Suite applications. The Color Settings files
(.csfs) installed with the applications provide an easy way for color management novices to get
started, but they can be customized to suit the needs of the most demanding expert users.

To synchronize the behavior of Creative Suite applications, simply load the same Color Settings
file into each application’s Color Settings dialog box. Doing so ensures that each application
handles color the same way.

To synchronize the behavior of

Creative Suite applications, simply
load the same Color Settings File
into each application’s Color Settings
dialog box.

Color Settings Files

Color Settings files control the key aspects of the application’s color management behavior. They
define the default interpretations of RGB and CMYK values, and they control how the application
interacts with profiles already embedded in image and layout files.

The Working Space menus specify profiles that provide default interpretations of RGB and
CMYK numbers.

The Color Management Policies menus specify how the applications deal with embedded pro-
files.

To simplify initial setup, all the Creative Suite applications include preset Color Settings files for
different types of work. For those new to color management, the new North American General

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Purpose Defaults, Europe General Purpose Defaults, and Japan General Purpose Defaults provide
settings that offer the benefits of color management for display and proofing in a way that is
transparent to the user and demands little or no interaction with color management controls and
dialog boxes. They are particularly useful for users who lack custom input and output profiles, or
for the large number of users who work in standards-based CMYK workflows.

The preset lists also contain Color Settings files for prepress, for Web graphics, and for emulation
of legacy application behaviors. More advanced users can also create custom Color Settings files
that all Creative Suite applications can share. See “How to Set Up a Color Settings File” later in this
document.

RGB Working Spaces

RGB working spaces such as sRGB and Adobe RGB (1998) provide idealized, shareable environ-
ments for editing color. Unlike the RGB produced by monitors or capture devices such as scanners
and digital cameras, RGB working spaces are inherently gray-balanced—equal amounts of R, G,
and B always produce a neutral gray—and are close to being perceptually uniform. Changing the
RGB numbers by the same amount produces an equal degree of visual change anywhere in the
tonal range or color gamut.

Non-color-managed applications send the document’s RGB values directly to the monitor, mak-
ing the resulting appearance totally dependent on the quirks of the specific monitor on which it
is viewed. Color-managed applications such as those in the Creative Suite perform an automatic
conversion on the data that gets sent to the display, by using the working space profile as the
source and the monitor profile as the destination, thereby ensuring a consistent appearance on any
profiled display. To realize the full benefit of this display compensation, a custom display profile is
highly recommended. See “Calibrating the Monitor” later in this document.

Soft-Proofing
One of the major benefits color management offers is the ability to preview the final output on
your display, a practice known as “soft-proofing.” The soft-proofing features in the Creative Suite
applications provide color-accurate previews of output conversions on the monitor.

Soft-proofing alerts you to any problems with out-of-gamut colors, shows the effect of the differ-
ent rendering intents, and interacts with the printing features to simplify the production of hard-
copy proofs. See “Controlling Color” later in this document.

Printing Controls
The Creative Suite applications can perform color management conversions at print time, on the
data that’s sent to the printer, without changing the document itself. The printing controls allow
two different conversions on output: one for producing final output, the other for proofing.

Output transforms convert the data sent to the print stream from the document source space or
spaces to the output profile specified in the color management panel of the Print dialog box, by
using the specified rendering intent. (In the case of Adobe® InDesign®, rendering intent is assigned
on a per-object basis; if no rendering intent is specified for an object, the document default is
used.)

Proofing transforms enable the simulation of final output on a local printer, without first convert-
ing the document content to the final output space. Proofing transforms first convert the data sent
to the print stream from the document space or spaces to the output profile specified in the Proof
Setup dialog box, then to the output profile specified in the color management panel of the Print
dialog box. See “Controlling Color” later in this document.
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Calibrating the Monitor
In color-managed applications, everything is displayed through the monitor profile. This confers
the major benefit that documents look the same on all displays, but to realize that benefit an ac-
curate monitor profile is essential. It’s possible to produce excellent color by using generic profiles
for input and output devices, but a custom profile for the monitor is essential because monitors
exhibit a great deal of unit-to-unit variation in manufacturing, and because user preferences over
the monitor controls can result in even greater variation.

Hardware Calibrators
Monitor calibration packages that use a hardware measurement device such as a colorimeter or
spectrophotometer offer by far the most reliable means of calibrating and profiling the display.
Such packages are simple to use, are relatively inexpensive, and require about 10-15 minutes, once
a month or so, to calibrate and profile the monitor. For users who wish to work visually and to rely
on soft-proofing to predict output appearance, hardware monitor calibration is highly recom-
mended.

Software-only Calibrators
The human eye is a wonderfully adaptable organ, capable of letting us see in lighting conditions
ranging from very dim starlight to full noonday sun. But one of the consequences of this adapt-
ability is that the eye is much more reliable for making relative judgements about tone and color
than it is for making absolute judgements. This makes monitor calibrators that rely on the eye to
make the measurements a great deal less reliable than those that use an instrument to do so.

Software-only calibrators are, however, better than nothing. The following guidelines will help you
get the best from visual calibrators such as Adobe Gamma (Windows) and ColorSync Calibrator
(Macintosh).

• All visual calibrators use an existing profile as their starting point. Do not use a profile that was
created with a visual calibrator as the starting point. Instead, either use a vendor-supplied profile
for your display, or if none is available, use the Apple RGB profile for Macintosh displays and
the sRGB profile for Windows displays.

• The eye is highly susceptible to influence from ambient lighting conditions. Ideally, the display
should be the brightest thing in the field of view. If this is impossible, try to ensure that you
always calibrate under the same lighting conditions.

• If your visual calibrator offers a choice of a single gamma value or independent gamma values
for each channel, choose the latter.

• Setting the individual gammas is accomplished by moving a slider control to match a dither
pattern with a solid color for each channel (red, green, and blue). It’s often very hard to see the
effect of the blue slider. However, if you set your desktop pattern to a neutral gray (which is
recommended for color work anyway), it’s easy to see the effect of the blue slider on the gray
desktop. Adjust it until the desktop appears neutral.

Setting Up a Color Settings File

To set up a Color Settings file (.csf), it’s important to understand just what the .csf does. When
color management is enabled in a Creative Suite application, the RGB or CMYK values of each
element are always interpreted through a source profile, which specifies the color appearance
generated by the RGB or CMYK numbers. The source profile can be associated with a document
or document element in one of three ways.
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• A profile that describes the color appearance represented by the RGB or CMYK numbers is
embedded in the document.

• A profile that describes the color appearance represented by the RGB or CMYK numbers is
manually assigned by the user.

• The RGB or CMYK values are interpreted through the default profile for that color mode.
Documents or elements that do not have profiles explicitly associated by embedding or manual
assignment—“untagged” elements—are always interpreted through the working space profiles
specified in the Color Settings file.

The .csf defines the default profiles for RGB and CMYK, and controls how the application handles
embedded profiles. Default profiles are specified in the Working Space entries, and profile han-
dling is specified by the Color Management Policies.

The Color Settings File defines the

default profiles for RGB and CMYK,
and controls how the application
handles embedded profiles. Default
profiles are specified in the Working
Space entries, and profile handling is
specified by the Color Management
Policies.

Working Spaces
The Color Settings feature allows you to specify default working space profiles for RGB and
CMYK (and in the case of Adobe Photoshop®, for grayscale and spot colors too). The general rec-
ommendation is to adopt one RGB working space wherever possible. However, the CMYK work-
ing space is likely to change from job to job unless you always print to the same press conditions.

If you have custom profiles for your press or proofing conditions, you should load them as the
CMYK working space. If you do not have custom profiles, or if the printing conditions are un-
known, the CMYK profiles supplied with the applications should still produce good results.

8
Color Management Policies
The Color Management Policies control how the application handles embedded profiles. You can
set one of three policies, separately for RGB and CMYK, to accommodate your workflow needs.

• Off sets the application to ignore any embedded profiles, and interpret the values in the docu-
ment by using the working space as the source profile. On save, no profiles are embedded. The
only exception is that if you open a document that has the working space profile embedded, that
profile will be embedded when you save.

• Preserve Embedded Profiles sets the application to use any embedded profiles in a document
or document element to interpret the RGB or CMYK values. On save, the embedded profile
is preserved and is once more embedded in the document. Documents or elements without
embedded profiles are interpreted through the working space profile.

• Convert to Working space sets the application, when it opens documents that contain an em-
bedded profile different from the working space, to perform a conversion from the embedded
profile to the working space, by using the rendering intent set as the default in Color Settings.
On save, the working space profile is embedded. Documents or elements without embedded
profiles are interpreted through the working space profile.

Profile Warnings
If you want greater control, the Profile Mismatches and Missing Profile warnings allow you to
deal with embedded profiles that differ from the working space, and with documents that lack an
embedded profile, on a case-by-case basis by presenting dialog boxes that offer several options.

• Profile Mismatch—Ask When Opening produces an alert when the document being opened
has an embedded profile that differs from the working space. The options it offers are:

Preserve the embedded profile and use it to interpret the document values.

Convert the document from the embedded profile to the working space profile by using the
default rendering intent specified in Color Settings.

Discard the embedded profile and treat the document as untagged, so that the document values
are interpreted through the current working space profile.

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• Profile Mismatch—Ask When Pasting produces an alert when you move elements between
documents in the same color mode (RGB or CMYK) by copy and paste or drag and drop, but in
different profile spaces. The options it offers are:

Convert—Preserve Color Appearance, which performs a conversion on the data being moved
from its current profile space to the profile space of the destination. The numeric values change,
but the appearance remains the same.

Don’t Convert—Preserve Color Numbers, which simply transfers the numerical values un-
changed. The numbers are then reinterpreted according to the destination document’s profile, so
the appearance changes.

When this warning is unchecked, the default behavior is that RGB-to-RGB transfers always
preserve the color appearance through a conversion, while CMYK-to-CMYK transfers always
transfer the color numbers, and hence the appearance may change.

• Missing Profile—Ask When Opening produces an alert when the document being opened has
no embedded profile. The options it offers are:

Leave As Is (Don’t Color Manage) treats the document as untagged, and hence the RGB or
CMYK values are interpreted through the current working space profile.

Assign Working RGB/CMYK assigns the current working space profile. The difference between
this and the previous option is that untagged documents are always interpreted by the current
working space, so changing the working space reinterprets untagged documents, while assign-
ing the working space profile interprets the document by using the assigned working space
profile even if the working space is subsequently changed.

Assign Profile allows the user to assign any profile that matches the color mode (it’s impossible
to assign a CMYK profile to an RGB document or an RGB profile to a CMYK document).

Assign Profile used with the Convert To Working selection enables a conversion from the as-
signed profile to the working space profile by using the default rendering intent specified in
Color Settings.

To suppress any of these alerts, uncheck the corresponding checkbox in Color Settings.

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Conversion Options
The Conversion Options (accessible in Illustrator and Photoshop by checking the Advanced Mode
checkbox in Color Settings) set the color management engine, or CMM, and the default rendering
intent for conversions.

The Conversion Options set the color

management engine and the default
rendering intent for conversions.

• Engine Sets the default color management engine for conversions. The choice of engine will
vary depending on platform and installed CMMs. The default, Adobe (ACE), is recommended,
as it uses a higher precision than most competing CMMs.

• Intent Sets the default rendering intent (perceptual, saturation, relative colorimetric, absolute
colorimetric) for conversions.

• Use Black Point Compensation A proprietary Adobe feature that addresses two problems that
can occur with some pairs of source and destination profile.

The first problem arises when the black point in the source profile is darker than the black
point in the destination, resulting in all the values between source and destination black getting
clipped to destination black, thereby losing shadow detail.

The second problem arises when the black point of the source is lighter than the black point
of the destination, resulting in a “washed-out” appearance because the result contains no true
blacks.

Black Point Compensation ensures that the dynamic range of the source is scaled into the dy-
namic range of the destination, so the full dynamic range of the destination is used and shadow
detail is preserved. Therefore, its use is recommended.
11
General Purpose Defaults
The Creative Suite applications ship with new General Purpose Default settings for North Amer-
ica, Europe, and Japan. They differ only in the default CMYK working spaces, which are tailored
for the different regional characteristics of the print process. The General Purpose Defaults are
designed to provide a safe, non-invasive RGB workflow and a by-the-numbers CMYK workflow
that still takes advantage of color management for accurate display and proofing.

The General Purpose Defaults

are designed to provide a safe,
non-invasive RGB workflow and a
by-the-numbers CMYK workflow
that still takes advantage of color
management for accurate display
and proofing.

The combination of the sRGB working space and the Preserve Embedded Profiles policy for RGB
means that untagged RGB, such as that produced by many scanners and digital cameras that do
not embed profiles, will be correctly interpreted as the sRGB that such devices generally produce,
while those devices that produce a different RGB, and embed profiles, will have their profiles
honored.

The combination of the regional default CMYK profiles and the Off policy ensures that CMYK
values are never subjected to automatic conversions by the applications, and display correctly for
the regional printing conditions.

The Missing Profile and Profile Mismatch warnings are suppressed, so you are not forced to deal
with color management issues unless and until you want to. Hence the new General Purpose De-
faults offer the benefits of color management with a minimum of interaction. If you have custom
press profiles you can substitute your custom profile for the default CMYK working space, and
those who desire more control can enable the various profile warnings, but the General Purpose
Defaults provide a good starting point for the majority of users.

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Creating and Importing Color
Slightly different rules apply for color defined as a native element in the application, and for im-
ported color elements.

Creating Color
New RGB or CMYK colors created in a Creative Suite application are always interpreted by the
RGB or CMYK document profile. Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator® documents use only one color
mode, so if you create a color by specifying CMYK values in an RGB document, the CMYK values
are interpreted by the default CMYK working space profile and converted to the RGB document
profile (which may or may not be the default RGB working space profile). Similarly, when you cre-
ate a color by specifying RGB values in a CMYK document, the RGB values are interpreted by the
default RGB working space profile and converted to the CMYK document profile (which may or
may not be the default CMYK working space profile).

InDesign documents may have both an RGB and a CMYK profile assigned, and these are used to
interpret the RGB or CMYK numbers. If no profile is assigned for one or other color mode, the
working space profile is used instead.

Importing Color
The source file for elements imported into InDesign or Illustrator as linked objects always remains
untouched. InDesign offers three options for setting the source profile it uses to interpret linked
objects.

• Use the embedded profile if one is present.

• Assign a profile to the element.

• Use the document profile for the element’s color mode (if the InDesign document is untagged,
the working space profile is used).

The profile is used for display, and for any conversions requested as part of the print stream (see
“Printing Controls—Final Output” later in this document).

Illustrator always includes a copy of linked elements in the Illustrator document. If the linked ele-
ment has no embedded profile and is in the same color mode as the document, the numerical val-
ues in the linked document are transferred to the Illustrator document with no conversion. If the
linked document is in a different color mode from the Illustrator document, the copy is converted
by using the working space for the linked element’s color mode as the source and the Illustrator
document profile as the destination.

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If the linked element has an embedded profile and is in the same color mode as the Illustrator
document, the behavior is governed by Illustrator’s color management policy settings, as follows:

• Off The numerical values in the linked element are transferred to the Illustrator document.

• Preserve Embedded Profiles If the linked element and the Illustrator document are both in
RGB, the values in the linked element are converted by using the embedded profile as the source
and the document profile as the destination. If the linked element and the Illustrator document
are both in CMYK, the values in the linked element are transferred to the Illustrator document
with no conversion.

• Convert to Working RGB/CMYK The values in the linked element are converted by using the
embedded profile as the source and the Illustrator document profile as the destination.

If the linked element has an embedded profile and is in a different color mode from the Illustrator
document, the values in the linked element are always converted by using the embedded profile as
the source and the Illustrator document profile as the destination.

Controlling Color
The Creative Suite applications provide simple but powerful controls for handling color at every
stage of the production process.

Assigning a profile
The act of assigning a profile attaches a specific color appearance to the values in a document.
Thus when a profile is assigned, the appearance may change, even though the values in the docu-
ment do not. The most common use of Assign Profile is to attach a specific color appearance to
an untagged document, but the command is also useful for predicting how a CMYK document
separated for one output process will appear on a different output process.

The Assign Profile command offers three options.

• Untag the document, so embedded profiles are ignored, and the values in the document are
interpreted through the working space profile.

• Assign the working space profile to a document.

• Assign any profile to a document.

Assign Profile applies globally to Illustrator and Photoshop documents. InDesign’s behavior is
slightly different.

Since InDesign documents allow both RGB and CMYK profiles in a single document, InDesign’s
Assign Profiles command allows the assignment of both an RGB and a CMYK profile. In addition,
InDesign’s Assign Profiles command allows the specification of rendering intents for solid color,
for images, and for transparency after-blending.
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InDesign’s Assign Profile command applies to all native elements in the document, and to linked
untagged elements. However, the rendering intent options also apply to linked tagged elements.
The Image Color Settings command allows the user to override the default rendering intent on an
object-by-object basis, as well as to assign profiles to linked elements in InDesign.

Converting between profiles

Converting between profiles changes the values in the document in such a way that the color ap-
pearance is preserved in the destination profile’s color space. For example, it’s often useful to con-
vert an image from a scanner or digital camera profile to a working space profile for editing, since
working spaces are designed to provide ideal editing environments, and it’s necessary to convert
RGB content to CMYK for print.

Illustrator allows only one kind of conversion, between RGB and CMYK. The source profile is al-
ways the document profile (which may or may not be the working space for the document’s color
mode), and the destination is always the working space for the destination color mode.

Photoshop’s Convert to Profile command allows specification of a destination profile, a rendering

intent, an engine, and the enabling or disabling of Black Point Compensation. The source profile is
always the current document profile.

InDesign’s Convert to Profile command allows specification of destination profiles for both RGB
and CMYK, in addition to a rendering intent, an engine, and the enabling or disabling of Black
Point Compensation. The source spaces are always the Document RGB and CMYK spaces.
InDesign’s Convert to Profile affects all native InDesign elements. After conversion, the destina-
tion profiles become the new document profiles, so the conversion also affects the interpretation
of linked untagged elements. It has no effect on linked tagged elements.

InDesign (top), Photoshop (bottom).

15
Soft-Proofing
A valuable feature of the Adobe Common Color Management Architecture is the ability to pre-
view, on the monitor, the appearance of the final output. The Proof Colors command toggles the
simulation on and off, and allows editing while viewing a live simulation of final output. By de-
fault, Proof Colors shows the result of conversion to the CMYK working space profile by using the
default rendering intent set in Color Settings. (In InDesign, it shows the rendering intents applied
to elements by using the Image Color Settings command. Elements that do not have a specific
rendering intent applied use the Color Settings default.)

The Proof Setup > Custom command allows the user to override the default behavior of Proof
Colors. The simulation is window-specific, so users can preview multiple output scenarios simul-
taneously by opening the same document in multiple windows and applying a different Proof
Setup to each one.

Since each application offers unique functionality, the Proof Setup dialog box offers different op-
tions in Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. The common element they all share is the ability to
specify a destination profile for the conversion that is simulated on the display.

InDesign (top), Illustrator (middle),

Photoshop (bottom).

Illustrator’s Proof Setup dialog box allows specification of a destination profile and rendering
intent for the on-screen simulation. In addition, when the document and the destination profile
share the same color mode (a CMYK document and a CMYK destination profile, or an RGB
document and an RGB destination profile), the Preserve Color Numbers checkbox becomes
enabled. When checked, this feature shows the appearance that would be generated if the values in
the document were sent directly to the destination profile space with no conversion.

InDesign’s Proof Setup dialog box allows specification of a destination profile. Since each ele-
ment in an InDesign document can have its own rendering intent, no rendering intent control is
offered.

16
InDesign’s Proof Setup dialog box offers two additional options under the Simulate label: Paper
White and Ink Black. These checkboxes control the way the simulation is rendered to the monitor.
By default, these options are unchecked, and the simulation is rendered to the monitor through
relative colorimetric rendering with Black Point Compensation, meaning that the simulated paper
white is rendered as monitor white, and the simulated ink black is rendered as monitor black.

In the majority of cases, this rendering produces an accurate simulation of the output on the
display. However, it can exaggerate the depth of the black in processes such as newsprint, or inkjet
on uncoated paper, and it can similarly minimize the effect of paper that is significantly different
from white. Checking Ink Black reproduces the actual color of output black, so the display shows
the washed-out blacks of the output. Checking Paper White makes the display show the actual
color of both black and white.

Since InDesign documents typically contain both RGB and CMYK elements, the Proof Setup
command does not include a Preserve Color Numbers feature.

Photoshop’s Proof Setup dialog box combines the profile and rendering intent specification and
Preserve Color Numbers features of Illustrator’s Proof Setup with the Simulate controls offered by
InDesign’s Proof Setup. Additionally, it allows enabling or disabling of Black Point Compensation
in the document-to-simulation conversion, allowing the user to override the default Black Point
Compensation setting in Color Settings.

The Proof Setup feature also ties in to the printing architecture to allow printing of simulated out-
put on another device, such as a laser or inkjet printer. See “Printing Controls—Printing Simula-
tions” later in this document.

Printing Controls—Final Output

All the Creative Suite applications offer the ability to perform a conversion on the data that gets
sent to the print stream. In the case of Photoshop and Illustrator, this allows for easy repurposing
of content for different outputs. In the case of InDesign, it also offers the ability to correctly print
documents that contain both RGB and CMYK content.

Note that application-level color management has no knowledge of color management in the print
driver or RIP (Raster Image Processor), so when you use the applications to perform final color
conversion, it is important to ensure that the printer driver or RIP does not also perform a conver-
sion. Failure to do so will result in a double conversion and unexpected results.

The Color Management pane of Illustrator’s Print dialog box allows specification of a destination
profile and rendering intent in the Print Space panel. When the print stream is generated, the data
is converted from the document profile to the Print Space profile through the specified rendering
intent. To send the values in the document unchanged to the print stream, choose Same as Source
from the Print Space menu.

17
 The Color Management pane of
Illustrator’s Print dialog box.

The Color Management panel of Photoshop’s Print with Preview dialog box allows specification of
the Source Space (the choices are Document or Proof), a Print Space profile, a rendering intent,
and enabling or disabling of Black Point Compensation.

The choice of Source Space depends on whether you wish to produce final output, or a simulation
of the final output on another printer. For simulations, see “Printing Controls—Printing Simula-
tions” later in this document. To produce final output, choose Document as the Source Space.

For Print Space, choose the final output profile, and select the desired rendering intent and Black
Point Compensation setting. The data sent to the print stream is converted from document to
Print Space through the selected rendering intent.

To send the data unchanged to the print stream, choose Same as Source in the Print Space menu.

18
 The Color Management panel of
Photoshop’s Print with Preview
dialog box.

Since InDesign documents can contain both RGB and CMYK content, InDesign’s printing con-
trols offer more options than those of Photoshop and Illustrator. While the Color Management
panel of InDesign’s Print dialog box is very similar to those of both Photoshop and Illustrator, the
Output settings in the Print dialog box interact with the Color Management settings to provide
options the other applications lack.

When Composite CMYK or Separations is chosen in the Output panel, only CMYK profiles are
available as Print Space profiles in the Color Management panel, and when Composite RGB is
chosen in the Output panel, only RGB profiles are available as Print Space profiles.

When Color Management is enabled, Composite RGB, Composite CMYK, or Separations is cho-
sen in the Output panel, and the Source Space is set to Document, all color data in the document
that is sent to the print stream is converted to the Print Space profile.

19
 The Color Management panel of
InDesign’s Print dialog box.

In addition, InDesign CS offers a new Output option, Composite—Leave Colors Unchanged, that
allows additional printing flexibility. When color management is disabled, this option sends both
RGB and CMYK values unchanged to the print stream. When Color Management is enabled,
source profiles are included for all objects, with one exception. If the color management policy is
set to Off, any objects that use the document profile as the source have their color values passed
unchanged to the print stream. Used in conjunction with the new General Purpose Defaults Color
Settings, this option provides an easy way to generate output that passes CMYK values unchanged
while ensuring that any RGB elements are properly tagged for subsequent conversion either dur-
ing in-RIP separations or by distilling a Postscript file.

Printing Controls—Printing Simulations

Photoshop and InDesign offer the ability to simulate final output on a different printing device,
such as an inkjet or color laser printer, without first converting the document to the final output
profile. This is accomplished through the Proof Setup feature.

When Proof is selected as the Source Space in the Color Management panel of Photoshop’s or
InDesign’s Print dialog box, the data sent to the print stream is first converted to the profile speci-
fied in Proof Setup. In Photoshop, the rendering intent specified in Proof Setup is used for the
conversion, while in InDesign, each object’s rendering intent is used for the conversion.

In Print Space, select the profile for the printer being used to print the simulation. The data sent
to the print stream then undergoes a further conversion, from the Proof Setup space to the printer
space. Note that when Proof is selected as the Source Space, the rendering intent for the print is
automatically set to Absolute Colorimetric, which makes the printer simulate the paper color of
the final output simulated in Proof Setup.

20
For example, to simulate final output on a SWOP press with coated stock on an inkjet printer, set
the profile in Proof Setup to U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2. Then, in the Color Management panel
of the Print dialog box, choose Proof as the Source Space, and the inkjet printer profile for the
paper being used to print in Print Space.

proof setup
conversion

To simulate final output on a SWOP

press with coated stock on an inkjet
printer, set the profile in Proof Setup
to U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2. Then,
document source space in the Color Management panel of
the Print dialog box, choose Proof
as the Source Space, and the inkjet
printer profile for the paper being
used to print in Print Space.

print space
conversion

In Photoshop, the data sent to the print stream is first converted from document space to proof
space, then from proof space to inkjet printer space, producing an accurate simulation on the
inkjet of the final SWOP press output. In InDesign, the data sent to the print stream for each
element in the document is converted from its source space (InDesign document elements may
have many source spaces) to proof space, then to inkjet printer space, again producing an accurate
simulation of the final SWOP press output.

The document itself undergoes no conversion—the conversions are applied only to the print
stream—so it’s possible both to create multiple final outputs and to simulate multiple final outputs
without ever converting the document data itself.

Color and PDF

Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) offers a convenient means of delivering everything
from initial comps, through intermediate soft proofs, to final production files, in a single-file
color-managed format. The Creative Suite applications offer comprehensive support for reading
and creating PDFs, but for those users who need even more control over PDF creation, the option
to print to a Postscript file and use Distiller to create a PDF is always available. Adobe Acrobat
6 Professional allows editing, preflighting, previewing separations, and printing PDF files for a
streamlined workflow.

21
Creating PDF files
Photoshop and Illustrator allow direct saving of documents in PDF format, with the option to
embed ICC profiles. Photoshop offers the ability to embed the document profile, or to perform a
conversion to the Proof Setup profile, and embed that profile.

For greater control over the PDF creation process, it’s also possible to print a PostScript file to
disk by using the Adobe PDF printer. This workflow offers the same color management options as
printing to a physical printer.

InDesign’s PDF creation features are available through the Export PDF function, which allows
selection of presets for creating different types of PDFs for purposes ranging from on-screen
viewing to final plate-ready production files, including compliance with PDF/X standards (see
“PDF/X” later in this document).

Configuring Distiller
For the majority of uses, the preset settings that are installed with Distiller should suffice. Most
PDF creation through Distiller leaves the color unchanged: Color is controlled during creation of
the PostScript, and any further necessary conversions are performed when printing the result-
ing PDF from Acrobat. The one common exception is in the creation of PDFs for on-screen use
through the Standard or Smallest File Size presets, where all color is converted to sRGB. In those
cases, the RGB and CMYK working spaces are used as source profiles for any untagged RGB or
CMYK elements, so you may wish to change them to match your workflow. For example, if you
have standardized on Adobe RGB as an RGB working space, you would change the default sRGB
working space in the Standard or Smallest File Size setting to Adobe RGB to ensure that untagged
RGB elements were correctly converted to sRGB for screen display.

Configuring Acrobat
As with Distiller, the presets supplied with Acrobat are sufficient for many uses. Acrobat can use
Color Settings files created by Illustrator, InDesign, or Photoshop, but does not support creation
of .csfs itself. In Acrobat, working spaces are used solely as source profiles for untagged elements.

Color management in Acrobat allows soft-proofing, including preview of separations, and conver-
sion from Source Space to Print Space during printing. The Color Management panel of Acrobat’s
Preferences allows specification of working spaces that are used as source profiles for untagged
elements, with one important checkbox not found in the other Creative Suite applications—Out-
putIntent Overrides Working Space Profiles. This option is checked by default, and when enabled
makes Acrobat use the OutputIntent profile as the source profile for untagged CMYK objects. This
is particularly useful in PDF/X workflows (see “PDF/X” later in this document).

Acrobat’s Proof Setup command (found on the Advanced menu) offers the same options and
functionality as InDesign’s Proof Setup—it allows specification of a profile, and control over Paper
White and Ink Black Simulation. Acrobat’s Separation Preview, also on the Advanced menu, al-
lows viewing of individual CMYK plates, or any combination of the individual plates.

Acrobat’s Color Management controls for printing are accessed through the Advanced button in
the main Print dialog box. The Output section of the Advanced Print Setup dialog box allows a
choice of output type—Composite, Composite Gray, Separations, or In-RIP Separations. It also
allows specification of a Printer Profile, which functions the same way as the Print Space profiles
in the other Creative Suite applications.

• To pass the values in the document unchanged to the printer, choose Same as Source.

22
• For In-RIP separations, or if you want to manage color on the printer rather than from Acrobat,
choose Postscript/Printer Color Management. This option also passes the values in the docu-
ment unchanged to the print stream, but includes each object’s source profile. When printing to
a Postscript device, the source profiles are converted from ICC profiles to Postscript CSAs for
Postscript color management in the printer.

• To perform a conversion from the source profiles to a printer profile, choose the printer profile.

• Check the Apply Proof Settings checkbox to perform a conversion from the source profiles to
the Proof Setup profile before conversion to final output space.

See “Color Management Workflow,” later in this document, for examples on using these features
in different workflow situations.

PDF/X
PDF/X (Portable Document Format Exchange) is a family of ISO standards designed for blind
exchange of data intended for print. PDF/X is a subset of PDF that provides everything required
to produce the document in a single file, using criteria tailored to the output process. Acrobat and
Distiller contain presets for creating and working with the two most common versions of PDF/
X—PDF/X–1a and PDF/X–3. The two versions differ mainly in their approach to color handling.

• PDF/X–1a, the most common version in North America, demands that all color is already in
CMYK (plus optional spot color), with no source profiles, but with an OutputIntent profile that
describes the intended printing conditions. PDF/X–1a is designed to be print-ready with no
further color conversions.

• PDF/X–3, common in Europe, allows device-independent color in addition to CMYK plus

optional spot color. Device-independent color, in this context, may be understood as CIE LAB,
or as any ICC-based color space (RGB or CMYK with a defined source profile). Conversions are
allowed from the Source Spaces to the final output space at print time.

To create a PDF/X–1a file from InDesign, choose PDF Export Presets from the File menu, then
choose PDF/X–1a from the PDF Export Presets submenu. After specifying a file name and loca-
tion, the PDF Export dialog box appears. In the Advanced panel, choose your desired CMYK
output profile under Destination Profile. This profile is automatically used as the OutputIntent
profile in the PDF document. Complete the settings not related to color management, then click
Export to export the document in PDF/X–1a format.

To create PDF/X–1a files from Illustrator, print the document to disk as a Postscript file, using
the printing controls to convert all color to your desired CMYK output space. Then open the
Postscript file in Distiller with the PDF/X–1a Preset loaded. If Distiller finds that the document
is PDF/X–1a compliant, it will create the PDF. If Distiller reports any problems, fix them in the
original document, then repeat the process.

To check the color, open the file in Acrobat, choose Proof Setup to view the file accurately on
screen, and choose Separation Preview to check that all elements separate correctly. To validate
the PDF/X–1a, choose Preflight from the document menu, and choose PDF/X–1a Compliant
from the Preflight Profiles list, then click Analyze. If no problems are shown in the report, click
Validate to attach a validation stamp to the PDF file.

To create a PDF/X–3 file from InDesign, choose PDF Export Presets from the File menu, then
choose PDF/X–3 from the PDF Export Presets submenu. After specifying a file name and loca-
tion, the PDF Export dialog box appears. In the Advanced panel, choose your desired CMYK 23
output profile under PDF/X OutputIntent profile. Complete the settings not related to color man-
agement, then click Export to export the document in PDF/X–3 format.

To check the color, open the file in Acrobat, choose Proof Setup to view the file accurately on
screen, and choose Separation Preview to check that all elements separate correctly. To validate
the PDF/X–3, choose Preflight from the document menu, and choose PDF/X–3 Compliant
(Lab/ICC OK) from the Preflight Profiles list, then click Analyze. If no problems are shown in the
report, click Validate to attach a validation stamp to the PDF file.

Color Management Workflow

Planning and communication are essential components of an efficient workflow. Color manage-
ment is a useful tool for clear communication of color, so the first step is to synchronize the inter-
pretation of color across each copy of all the applications used in the production chain. Adobe’s
Color Settings files (.csfs) provide an easy means of accomplishing this goal.

Synchronizing Color
To synchronize color across the Creative Suite applications, first decide on a standard RGB work-
ing space. If the project involves output to a single, known CMYK output process for which a
profile is available, set that profile as the CMYK working space, then save a Color Settings file with
those working spaces.

If multiple CMYK outputs are envisaged, or if the CMYK output process is unknown, load one
of the Adobe-supplied profiles for regional press standards—for example, U.S. Web Coated
(SWOP) v2—to provide an approximate idea of the available CMYK color gamut, then save a
Color Settings file with those working spaces. You can save the Color Settings file from Illustrator,
InDesign, or Photoshop, but Photoshop’s Color Settings file contains more information than the
others, so if you have a choice, use Photoshop to create the .csf.

Working with Color Images

Color images may be captured from a desktop scanner, from a digital camera, or from a tradi-
tional prepress drum scanner.

Consumer-level digital cameras and scanners often save files in the sRGB space. If you use sRGB
as your RGB working space, you can leave such images untagged; they will be interpreted cor-
rectly by the sRGB working space. If you use a different RGB working space, your workflow will
be simplified by converting them to that working space in Photoshop, through the Convert to
Profile command.

Other RGB captures may be converted to the RGB working space through the source profile for
the capture device. If the capture software embeds the profile, you can convert to the working
space by using Convert to Profile. If the capture software does not embed the profile, you can as-
sign the profile in Photoshop by using Assign Profile, then convert to the working space by using
Convert to Profile. If no capture profile is available, you can edit the image in the RGB working
space. If your RGB working spaces are synchronized, the edits will be reflected accurately in other
applications.

If you are more comfortable with a CMYK workflow, you can convert the RGB captures to work-
ing CMYK in Photoshop. Traditional CMYK scans are normally supplied untagged, and are inter-
preted by the working space profile, which shows the appearance these scans will generate when
sent to the print process described by the working space profile.

24
Working with Vector Art FOR MORE INFORMATION
For a comprehensive
Illustrator and InDesign allow specifying colors as RGB or CMYK, in both cases by using the
overview of Adobe Creative Suite,
working space profile as the source. If the project involves output to a single, known CMYK out- please visit www.adobe.com/
put process for which a profile is available, use that CMYK profile as the working space, and define products/creativesuite.html

all objects in CMYK.

When the output is unknown, or multiple outputs are contemplated, RGB and CMYK each have
advantages and disadvantages. Working in RGB allows easy repurposability, but also allows speci-
fication of colors that lie outside the available gamut of print. Working with Proof Colors turned
on and set to the CMYK working space can mitigate the problem. Working in CMYK mimics
the traditional prepress workflow, but may require manual editing of colors for different output
scenarios. The Assign Profile command allows you to assign different CMYK profiles and see the
appearance the CMYK values generate in each output scenario.

Soft Proofs
The Proof Setup feature of the Creative Suite applications allows working inside a live simulation
of final output. Proof Setup settings are window-specific, so previewing multiple output scenarios
simultaneously can be accomplished by opening multiple windows of the same document and us-
ing a different Proof Setup for each one.

Hard-Copy Proofs
The Proof Setup feature also allows generation of hard-copy proofs by choosing Proof as the
Source Space, and the local printer profile as Print Space, when printing to a local printer. The
data sent to the print stream is first converted to the Proof space, then to the local printer space, to
produce an accurate simulation of the final output.

Final Output
Conversion to final output space can be accomplished at any of several points in the workflow.
In a traditional CMYK workflow, all elements are converted to final CMYK early in the process.
Traditional drum scans start in CMYK, and RGB digital captures are converted to CMYK in
Photoshop prior to import in InDesign. Vector art and native elements are created in final CMYK.
This workflow is simple and efficient, but it’s also inflexible. If the output conditions change, much
of the color may need reworking.

Conversion to final output space can also happen at print time, being performed either by the
host application or in the RIP. Document elements may be in final CMYK, in some other CMYK
space described by an embedded profile, in untagged RGB by using the RGB working space as
source profile, or in another RGB space described by an embedded profile. The advantage of this
workflow is media agility—it’s easy to repurpose the content by changing the Print Space profile at
print time or by using a different Color Rendering Dictionary in the RIP. The disadvantage is that
printing takes longer since all the color conversions are performed at print time.

Most current workflows lie somewhere between these two extremes. The color management fea-
tures of the Creative Suite offer the power and flexibility to redefine or convert color as necessary
at any stage of the production process.

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