Adobe AFTER EFFECTS CS3 PROFESSIONAL User Manual page 251

In some cases, files that you import will have ICC profiles embedded in them. When you import these files, you can
be confident that the colors that you see are as the producer of the footage originally intended. After Effects can read
and write embedded color profiles for Photoshop (PSD), TIFF, PNG, and JPEG files.
If a footage item does not have an embedded color profile, you can assign an input color profile using the Interpret
Footage dialog box or by adding or modifying a rule in the interpretation rules file (interpretation rules.txt). After
Effects interprets the footage item as if the source footage was created using this color profile, so be certain to assign
a profile that matches (or at least approximates) that used to create the source footage.
Non-RGB footage items (e.g., CMYK, Y'CbCr, and camera raw images) cannot be assigned an input profile. Their
native color space is displayed in the Interpret Footage dialog box. Conversion of non-RGB color values to RGB color
values is handled automatically for each format.
If you don't assign an input color profile, and After Effects doesn't have a rule in the interpretation rules file with
which to make an interpretation, the footage item's colors are assumed to be in the project's working color space.
When color management is enabled, a footage item's input color profile is shown in the information area at the top
of the Project panel.
The Interpret As Linear Light option determines whether the assigned input color profile is interpreted as being
linear (gamma equals 1.0). This option also works when color management is turned off for the project. (See "About
gamma and tone response" on page 239.)
1 Select a footage item in the Project panel.
Choose File > Interpret Footage > Main.
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3 In the Color Management tab of the Interpret Footage dialog box, choose a value from the Assign Profile menu.
If you don't see the profile that you want in the Assign Profile menu, select Show All Available Profiles.
Read the information in the Description area of the dialog box to confirm that the conversion is the one that you
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want, and click OK.
See also
"Interpret footage items" on page 60
"Introduction to Camera Raw" on page 92
Assign an output color profile
You control color management for each output item using the Output Module Settings dialog box.
Important: When you export to Flash SWF format, you use the Export menu, not the Render Queue panel, so the
output module settings are not available for this output type. If color management is enabled for the project, After Effects
automatically converts colors from the project's working color space to the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 color space when
exporting to SWF.
You can prevent the conversion of colors from the working color space for a single output item by selecting Preserve
RGB in the Color Management tab of the Output Module Settings dialog box. This option preserves RGB numbers;
color appearance is not preserved. Turning off color management for a specific footage item is useful when the
footage item is not intended for visual display, but is instead intended for use as a control layer—for example, a
displacement map.
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