Dear All,
discovered the pleasures of Edit>Convert to Profile command. When I convert to a new profile (I have belatedly discovered paper profiles) from adobe RGB to Hahnelmule Photorag to be precise there is a loss of saturation I am having trouble recovering. I will avoid this problem by starting with the correct profile however I have a lot of work in the wrong profile. To keep things simple I have flattened the image. Suggestions?
>> Edit>Convert to Profile command. When I convert to a new profile...there is a loss of saturation I am having trouble recovering
that is a sure sign your Source Space has "out of gamut" color in your print space that will need to be addressed in every file, sorry, i don't know many tips for this
as you mentioned important, before converting (Edit> Convert to Profile) always flatten any adjustment layers
try this: gballard.net/psd/cmstheory.html
starting with: SOFT PROOFING in Photoshop (1/3 down the page)
OUT-OF-GAMUT COLORS and
Rendering Intent: Perceptual v Relative Colorimetric
Bruce Fraser was the King of this area:
http://www.creativepro.com/articles/author/127446
his theories are still very much relevant today
My target output is archival inkjets with which I have has some problems. The mains place that I used seemed unaware of paper profiles hence very variable output. Now I have the problem of a number of files I need to use Edit>Convert to Profile. the Vibrance filter can help but there is also a loss of very fine detail and a compression of tonal range.
Not sure what a "mains place" is - print house? It's amazing that in this day and age that a print shop wouldn't know about color profiles.
It's hard to envision a loss of detail because of a profile conversion, though... Can you put up before/after screenshots? I'm wondering if something is wrong with the profile on hearing that. VERY curious.
-Noel
It was a printmaking workshop where the main emphasis is on traditional printmaking techniques. The paper profile was from another bureau. If you can recommend where I could source the paper profile for Hahnemule photorag I would appreciate it. The file I am looking at is a little untidy. I would build it a little better now. And now amount of fiddling with adjustment layers is enabling me recreate the saturation and tonal range of the adobe RGB space I created it in.
>> I was recomended to use Convert to Profile by the print bureau.
i think the undercurrent here is the source>print Conversion should be applied in the printer setup — not in Photoshop — although, as long as the conversion is done as a final last step in packaging the file for the printer (and that's what the printer requested), i don't see a problem as long as you keep the editable working copy preserved in its wider-gamut form
in other words, as you probably know, don't convert your master file to the small print profile, hammer away on it, and Save over it...much better to work on a copy of the master file in Adjustment Layers, and do the conversion as a last step before saving a copy of that for the printer
if i was developing a workflow to deal with these issues, i would read everything Bruce Fraser wrote about Photoshop Gamut, Gamut Warning, Soft Proofing, 16-bit capturing and editing in Adjustment Layers (until i fully understood what he was talking about)
next i would go to View> Proof Setup> Custom and set Device to Simulate to the printer profile (so i could exploit Photoshop's Gamut Warning & Soft Proofing tools)
then when the prints come back, train my eye to interpret the differences and work better from the start based on what is being observed in the problem (and good) areas
of course, this is assuming that all three of your profiles are excellent for 'accurate' proofing on the monitor: source, monitor, and print spaces
I would like to persevere with this shop as it is 50-60% cheaper than places that do know what they are doing. So I would like to have some idea of what is going on. If I embedded the profile + the printer is set so that photoshop manages colour will this control the output.
Secondly how seriously should you take out of gamut warnings?
Thanks
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