Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
CS2 and are now accessed under the
Edit
menu just above the Color Set-
tings. Otherwise, the functionality is identical.
Assign Profile
The
Assign Profile
command confuses many users. If I had a dollar for
every person that ask me to explain the difference between the
Assign
Profile
and
Convert to Profile
commands I could afford to feed my dogs filet
Mignon. The differences are significant but not difficult to grasp. The
Assign Profile
command allows you to inform Photoshop what the
meaning of the numbers in a document are by associating that document
with an ICC profile. This is usually necessary when someone or some
device provides you with a document that has no embedded profile. I
have discussed the problem with untagged documents.
The
Assign Profile
command allows you to inform Photoshop about the
document color space.
Assign Profile
doesn't change the numbers, only the
meaning of the numbers. The Tutorial #6, “Assign Profile versus Convert
to Profile Command” should make this command perfectly clear. There
are only three options available in this dialog and only one “right”
answer. The document is untagged and we know the right tag or we have
to guess. If you know the document color space happens to be in the
current working space, the middle radio button is the right answer. If you
don't know the actual color space, the profile pop-up menu will allow
you to select the ICC profile that resides on your computer. Hope and
pray that the correct ICC profile does appear in this list. Since this is just
a big guessing game, the only way to know for sure is to try each and
every ICC profile until an acceptable preview is seen. It's possible that
none will work to your satisfaction.
Once you have tried assigning dozens of ICC profiles in this guessing
game only to find none really produce good color appearance, you'll be
as frustrated with untagged documents as I am. If you are playing this
profile guessing game, try assigning standard working spaces to RGB files
first. If the untagged document came in such a space, you'll likely find
the right answer quickly. If the document is in CMYK or for some reason
an RGB output space, picking the right ICC profile will be akin to finding
a needle in a hay stack. If you're lucky, you might actually have an ICC
profile that is the right descriptor of the document or something reason-
ably close to it.
The option to untag the profile from the document is something you
should do with caution based upon the evils of untagged documents.
However, there are situations where you might want to remove an ICC
