Color-Managing Documents When Printing; Letting The Printer Determine Colors When Printing; Letting The Application Determine Colors When Printing; Obtaining Custom Profiles For Desktop Printers - Adobe Photoshop CS6 User Manual

Color-managing documents when printing

Printing with color management

Letting the printer determine colors when printing

Letting the application determine colors when printing

Obtaining custom profiles for desktop printers

Color-managing PDFs for printing
Printing with color management
Color management options for printing let you specify how you want Adobe applications to handle the outgoing image data so the printer will print
colors consistent with what you see on your monitor. Your options for printing color-managed documents depend on the Adobe application you
use, as well as the output device you select. In general, you have the following choices for handling colors during printing:
Let the printer determine colors.
Let the application determine colors.
(InDesign) Do not use color management. In this workflow, no color conversion occurs. You may also need to turn off color management in
your printer driver. This method is useful primarily for printing test targets or generating custom profiles.
Letting the printer determine colors when printing
In this workflow, the application does the minimum color conversion required to get the document into a color space that the printer supports. For
example, when printing CMYK or duotone images to a desktop inkjet, the application converts to RGB or Lab color, depending upon printer
support.
This method is especially convenient when printing to inkjet photo printers, because each combination of paper type, printing resolution, and
additional printing parameters (such as high-speed printing) requires a different profile. Most new inkjet photo printers come with fairly accurate
profiles built into the driver, so letting the printer select the right profile saves time and alleviates mistakes. This method is also recommended if
you are not familiar with color management.
If you choose this method, it is very important that you set up printing options and turn on color management in your printer driver. Search Help for
additional instructions.
If you select a PostScript printer, you can take advantage of PostScript color management. PostScript color management makes it possible to
perform color composite output or color separations at the raster image processor (RIP)—a process called in-RIP separations—so that a program
need only specify parameters for separation and let the device calculate the final color values. PostScript color-managed output workflows require
an output device that supports PostScript color management using PostScript Level 2 version 2017 or later, or PostScript Lanuage Level 3.
Letting the application determine colors when printing
In this workflow, the application does all the color conversion, generating color data specific to one output device. The application uses the
assigned color profiles to convert colors to the output device's gamut, and sends the resulting values to the output device. The accuracy of this
method depends on the accuracy of the printer profile you select. Use this workflow when you have custom ICC profiles for each specific printer,
ink, and paper combination.
If you choose this option, it is very important that you disable color management in your printer driver. Letting the application and the printer driver
simultaneously manage colors during printing results in unpredictable color. Search Help for additional instructions.
Obtaining custom profiles for desktop printers
If the output profiles that come with your printer don't produce satisfactory results, you obtain custom profiles in the following ways:
Purchase a profile for your type of printer and paper. This is usually the easiest and least expensive method.
Purchase a profile for your specific printer and paper. This method involves printing a profiling target on your printer and paper, and providing
that target to a company that will create a specific profile. This is more expensive than purchasing a standard profile, but can provide better
results because it compensates for any manufacturing variations in printers.
Create your own profile using a scanner-based system. This method involves using profile-creation software and your own flatbed scanner to
scan the profiling target. It can provide excellent results for matte surface papers, but not glossy papers. (Glossy papers tend to have
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