Color-Managing Documents For Online Viewing - Adobe GOLIVE CS2 User Manual

ADOBE GOLIVE CS2
660
User Guide

Color-managing documents for online viewing

Color-managing documents for online viewing
Color management for online viewing is very different from color management for printed media. With printed
media, you have far more control over the appearance of the final document. With online media, your document will
appear on a wide range of possibly uncalibrated monitors and video display systems, significantly limiting your
control over color consistency.
When you color-manage documents that will be viewed exclusively on the web, Adobe recommends that you use the
sRGB color space. sRGB is the default working space for most Adobe color settings, but you can verify that sRGB is
selected in the Color Settings dialog box of any Creative Suite application. With the working space set to sRGB, any
RGB graphics you create will use sRGB as the color space.
When working with images that have an embedded color profile other than sRGB, you should convert the image's
colors to sRGB before you save the image for use on the web. If you want the application to automatically convert the
colors to sRGB when you open the image, select Convert To Working Space as the RGB color management policy.
In Photoshop and InDesign, you can also manually convert the colors to sRGB using the Edit > Convert To Profile
command.
See also
"About color working spaces" on page 670
"Color Management Policy options" on page 672
Color-managing PDF documents for online viewing
When you export Portable Document Format (PDF) files, you can choose to embed profiles. PDF files with
embedded profiles reproduce color consistently in Acrobat 4.x or later running under a properly configured color
management system. For information about color management in Acrobat software, see Acrobat online Help.
Keep in mind that embedding color profiles increases the size of PDF files. RGB profiles are usually small (around
3K); however, CMYK profiles can range from .5 to 2 MB.
See also
"Color-managing PDF files for printing" on page 664
Color-managing HTML documents for online viewing
Many web browsers do not support color management. Of the browsers that do support color management, not all
instances can be considered color-managed because they may be running on systems where the monitors are not
calibrated. In addition, few web pages contain images with embedded profiles. If you manage a highly controlled
environment, such as the intranet of a design studio, you may be able to achieve some degree of HTML color
management for images by equipping everyone with a browser that supports color management and calibrating all
monitors.
You can approximate how colors will look on non-calibrated monitors by using the sRGB color space. In Adobe
GoLive, you can also preview how colors will look in different browsers using options in the View palette. (See "To
preview how colors will appear in a web browser" on page 663.) However, because color reproduction varies among
uncalibrated monitors, you still won't be able to anticipate the true range of potential display variations.