Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 8
CMS Utilities
As we've come toward the end of our color management journey, there
are a few utilities to investigate. Many may be useful additions to your
imaging and color management tool kit. Some of the utilities discussed
are free, others are commercial products. All the utilities have merit (I
wouldn't discuss them if that were not the case), but don't feel that you
need to rush out and purchase every utility known to man until you've
become comfortable with color management and Photoshop. Some of
these utilities are very good at evaluating profile quality. Others are excel-
lent for learning about profiles and their internal functions while ensur-
ing all your profiles are functioning correctly. Some of the utilities are for
speeding up production of color management in the pipeline. Such prod-
ucts can be tremendous time savers.
Apple's ColorSync Utility (Mac OS X)
The Apple ColorSync utility is a free addition to Macintosh (Mac OS X)
users, and has a number of quite useful capabilities and a few oddities,
which I'll discuss. ColorSync Utility is found in the Utilities folder inside
the Applications folder; however, double-clicking an ICC profile will also
launch the software. Depending on whether the user launches the appli-
cation directly or double-clicks an existing profile, the interface has a dif-
ferent appearance as seen in Figs. 8-1 and 8-2. In Fig. 8-1, you can see
the main interface with the five buttons at the top, which move the user
into different functions within the utility. This is the interface seen when
the application is launched in a standard fashion. Figure 8-2 shows the
user interface that appears after double-clicking an ICC profile.
Preferences
Based on the instructions in the panel titled Preferences, the information
indicates that the Preferences are used to select RGB, CMYK, and
Grayscale profiles for untagged documents. The profiles are those
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