Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers - Martin Evening [278]
Profile mismatches and missing profiles
The default prepress color management policy setting is set to ‘Ask When Opening’ if there is a profile mismatch (Figure 12.17). This means you will see the warning dialog shown in Figure 12.18 whenever the profile of a file you are opening does not match the current workspace. This offers you a chance to use the embedded profile (which is recommended), convert the document colors to the current workspace or discard the profile.
Figure 12.17 The Color Management Policies, with the Profile Mismatches and Missing Profiles checkboxes checked.
Figure 12.18 If the ‘Preserve Embedded Profiles’ color management policy is selected and the ‘Ask When Opening’ box is checked in the Profile Mismatches section (Figure 12.17), you will see the dialog shown here whenever there is a profile mismatch between the image you are opening and the current working space. You can then open using the embedded profile, override the policy and convert to the working space, or discard the embedded profile. Whatever you do, select one of these options and click OK, because if you click ‘Cancel’ you'll cancel opening the file completely. I usually prefer to use Preserve Embedded Profiles and deselect ‘Ask When Opening’, so that I am not constantly shown this dialog.
A newcomer does not necessarily have to fully understand how Photoshop color management works in order to use it successfully. When ‘Preserve Embedded Profiles’ is selected this makes the Photoshop color management system quite foolproof and the color management system is adaptable enough to suit the needs of all Photoshop users, regardless of their skill levels. Whichever option you select – convert or don't convert – the saved file will always be correctly tagged.
Convert to Working space
If you select the Convert to Working space policy, Photoshop automatically converts everything to your current RGB or CMYK workspace. If the incoming profile does not match the workspace, then the default option is to carry out a profile conversion from the embedded profile space to the current workspace, as shown in Figure 12.19 (when the incoming profile matches the current RGB, CMYK or grayscale workspace, there is of course no need to convert the colors). Or, you will see the dialog shown in Figure 12.20, if the ‘Ask When Opening’ box is checked in the Profile Mismatches section. Convert to Working space can be a useful option for RGB mode because you may wish to convert all your RGB images to your working space (but not the CMYK files). For batch processing work I sometimes prefer to temporarily use the Convert to Working space RGB setting because this allows me to apply a batch operation to a mixture of files in which all the images end up in the current RGB workspace.
Figure 12.19 If the Convert to Working RGB color management policy is selected (but without checking ‘Ask When Opening’ in the Profile Mismatches section), this dialog will appear whenever there is a profile mismatch between the image you are opening and the current working space. When you see this dialog, click OK to convert the document colors to the current color working space. Click ‘Don't show again’ if you don't wish to be reminded each time this occurs.
Figure 12.20 If the Convert to Working RGB color management policy is selected and the ‘Ask When Opening’ box is also checked in the Profile Mismatches section you will see the dialog shown here, where you can make a choice on opening to use the embedded profile, convert to the working space, or override the policy and discard the embedded profile.
Include a ‘Read Me’ file
When you save a profiled RGB file, you might want to enclose a Read Me file on the disk to remind the person who receives the image that they should not ignore the embedded profile information.
Color Management Off
The other option is to choose ‘Off’. When this option is selected Photoshop appears not to color manage incoming documents and it will assume the default RGB or CMYK workspace to be the