Printing - Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 for Photographers - page 482

Printer Profile
The Printer Profile is a small settings file that describes to Photoshop Elements the range of
colors that are capable of being printed by the device. Most often these files are downloaded
to your computer when you install the drivers for a new printer. Some printers have a single
printer profile, others have several different versions depending on the paper surface that
you are printing on. If you have selected the Photoshop Elements Manages Colors option
then you need to also correctly choose the printer profile from the drop-down list in the
Color Management section of More Options area of the Print dialog.
The Rendering Intent
setting you pick de-
termines how the col-
ors that are present
in your photo but not
able to be printed are
handled by Photo-
shop Elements.
Rendering Intent
At various points in the digital photography process it is necessary to change or alter the
spread of colors in a picture so that they fit the characteristics of an output device, such as a
screen or printer, more fully. The Photoshop Elements user has four choices of approach that
the program can use in this conversion process. Each approach produces different results
and is based on a specific conversion or 'rendering intent'. Specific conversion approaches
can be selected from the Rendering Intent drop-down menu in the Color Management sec-
tion of the print dialog. The options are:
The Relative Colorimetric setting squashes or stretches the range of colors in the original
photo so that they fit the range of possible colors that the new device can display or print.
The Saturation option tries to maintain the strength of colors during the conversion pro-
cess (even if color accuracy is the cost).
The Perceptual setting puts conversion emphasis on ensuring that the adjusted picture,
when viewed on the new output device, appears to the human eye to be very similar to the
original photo.
The Absolute Colorimetric option translates colors exactly from the original photo to the
range of colors for the new device. Those colors that can't be displayed are clipped.
Sound a little confusing? Well don't worry. The default setting, Relative Colorimetric, is usu-
ally a fine choice for most subjects.