Tutorials - Color Management for Photographers - page 339

When the check boxes are off, you can automate how Photoshop deals
with documents but the safety net is gone.
Setting a policy to Preserve Embedded Profiles and having the
check boxes on provides the best safety net and flexibility.

Tutorial #6: Assign Profile 3 versus Convert to
Profile Command

This tutorial is intended to illustrate not only the differences between the
Assign Profile command and the Convert to Profile command, but
also how altering Photoshop's Color Settings affects untagged files. As
you will see, when dealing with untagged files, altering the Color
Settings produces a behavior that is identical to using the Assign Profile
command. This tutorial illustrates how altering the Color Settings affects
only untagged documents, whereas those with embedded profiles retain
their color appearance thanks to the Document Specific Color architec-
ture in Photoshop.

1. Choose Color Settings in Photoshop CS ( Command/Control-
Shift-K ).

2. For this exercise, set the Color Settings to U.S. Prepress
Defaults ( North America Prepress 2 in Photoshop CS2).
Notice that the RGB working space for this saved setting is
Adobe RGB (1998) and the policy is set to Preserve Embedded
Profile as shown in Fig. 9-6-1. Make sure that your settings
match those in Fig. 9-6-1, and then click OK to accept.

3. Open the BabyTosh.tif image, which is in the Tutorial folder
that shipped with this topic. You should get a Missing Profile
dialog as seen in Fig. 9-6-2. Notice that you have an option to
keep the document untagged as seen with the radio button
named Leave as is (don't color manage) , assign the working
space [ Assign working RGB: Adobe RGB (1998) ] as was set
in the U.S. Prepress setting, or assign a profile by using the
Assign profile pop-up menu. It's quite possible that the profile
in the bottom radio button is different from what you see here,
as it is “sticky,” meaning it remembers the last setting selected. In
Fig. 9-6-2, it happens to be set to Colormatch RGB .

4. Select the top radio button Leave as is (don't color manage)
and click OK . The document opens but it's quite possible the
preview you see doesn't look very good. For this tutorial, have
the Document Profile indicator picked in the pop-up below

3

In Photoshop CS, the Assign Profile command is accessed in the Image-Mode
submenu. In Photoshop CS2, this command has been moved to the Edit menu.