Adobe Photoshop Guides & Tips
This page contains tips for using the colour management features of Adobe Photoshop. We use this process all the time to preview and print images and it is the currently accepted best practice for printing without a RIP (Raster Image Processor). The procedure is identical on Widows or Mac systems. Here we will cover current and earlier versions of Photoshop as well as Photoshop Elements 6.
At the bottom of this page are PDFs describing printing and soft proofing for the different versions of Photoshop.
Printing from Photoshop
Photoshop CS3
This is the current version (although it is soon to be replaced by CS4 - 64 bit for Windows, not for Mac!!). The Print dialogue has all the settings needed for a colour managed output in one location.
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Choose the Printer and Page Setup options. You also have the option of turning off Center Image if you want to position the image somewhere different on the page. For example this is useful if you want to print an A5 image on an A4 sheet. Click the check box off and move the image to the top of the page using the Top offset box.
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Match Print Colors: This check box will produce a soft proof of your image in the Preview window using the currently selected printer profile and rendering intent. This does not affect the output and is only a visual warning of what your image will print like using that process. Turn the check box on and off to see the difference. This is most evident with a matte paper profile.
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Document/Proof: These radio buttons determine if you are printing a direct output (most common) or if you are using your printer to simulate another device like a cmyk offset process. Generally leave this on Document unless you specifically want to Proof. See the Proofing page for more details on this. The profile in brackets is the current embedded profile in the document.
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This is where the colour conversions are controlled:
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Colour Handling: Select Photoshop Manages Colors. This will instruct Photoshop to make the conversion from the source profile (document) to the printer profile chosen next. Make sure to turn off any colour management in the printer driver.
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Printer Profile: Choose the profile for the paper and printer you are going to print on. Make sure to use the printer driver settings that were provided by the maker of the print profile.
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Rendering Intent: This controls how Photoshop converts out of gamut colours from the image into the print space. The two options generally used are Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric. They both produce a slightly different rendering and there is no right answer as to which one to use. The best way to decide is to soft proof the image in Photoshop with each intent and see which rendering you prefer. For a more detailed desription of the rendering intent, see the section on soft proofing at the bottom of this page.
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Black Point Compensation: Easy. Always leave this on.
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When you press print, go to the printer you are using and make the driver selections that match the conditions that the printer profile was made under.
When the print emerges, wait a few minutes before evaluating the colour and tone under a good viewing light (such as Solux).
Photoshop CS2
The print controls we need in CS2 are found under Print with Preview. There is no Match Print Colors option in CS2.
Make Sure that the Pop up menu under the image preview says Color Management not Output. If it is wrong, click to change it.
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Choose the Page Setup options. You also have the option of turning off Center Image if you want to position the image somewhere different on the page. For example this is useful if you want to print an A5 image on an A4 sheet. Click the check box off and move the image to the top of the page using the Top offset box.
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Document/Proof: These radio buttons determine if you are printing a direct output (most common) or if you are using your printer to simulate another device like a cmyk offset process. Generally leave this on Document unless you specifically want to Proof. See the Proofing page for more details on this. The profile in brackets is the current embedded profile in the document
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This is where the colour conversions are controlled:
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Colour Handling: Select Photoshop Manages Colors. This will instruct Photoshop to make the conversion from the source profile (document) to the printer profile chosen next. Make sure to turn off any colour management in the printer driver.
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Printer Profile: Choose the profile for the paper and printer you are going to print on. Make sure to use the printer driver settings that were provided by the maker of the print profile.
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Rendering Intent: This controls how Photoshop converts out of gamut colours from the image into the print space. The two options generally used are Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric. They both produce a slightly different rendering and there is no right answer as to which one to use. The best way to decide is to soft proof the image in Photoshop with each intent and see which rendering you prefer.For a more detailed desription of the rendering intent, see the section on soft proofing at the bottom of this page.
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Black Point Compensation: Easy. Always leave this on.
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When you press print, go to the printer you are using and make the driver selections that match the conditions that the printer profile was made under.
When the print emerges, wait a few minutes before evaluating the colour and tone under a good viewing light (such as Solux).
Photoshop CS and Photoshop 7
Photoshop CS and Photoshop 7 both use the same Print with Preview window found under the File menu.
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Choose the Page Setup options. You also have the option of turning off Center Image if you want to position the image somewhere different on the page. For example this is useful if you want to print an A5 image on an A4 sheet. Click the check box off and move the image to the top of the page using the Top offset box.
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Click on the Show More Options check box. Make Sure that the Pop up menu under the image preview says Color Management not Output. If it is wrong, click to change it.
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Document/Proof Setup: These radio buttons determine if you are printing a direct output (most common) or if you are using your printer to simulate another device like a cmyk offset process. Generally leave this on Document unless you specifically want to Proof. See the Proofing page for more details on this. The profile in brackets is the current embedded profile in the document
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This is where the colour conversions are controlled:
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Profile: Choose the profile for the paper and printer you are going to print on. Make sure to use the printer driver settings that were provided by the maker of the print profile.
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Intent: This controls how Photoshop converts out of gamut colours from the image into the print space. The two options generally used are Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric. They both produce a slightly different rendering and there is no right answer as to which one to use. The best way to decide is to soft proof the image in Photoshop with each intent and see which rendering you prefer. For a more detailed desription of the rendering intent, see the section on soft proofing at the bottom of this page.
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Black Point Compensation: Easy. Always leave this on.
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When you press print, go to the printer you are using and make the driver selections that match the conditions that the printer profile was made under.
When the print emerges, wait a few minutes before evaluating the colour and tone under a good viewing light (such as Solux).
Photoshop Elements 6
Photoshop Elements 6 is pretty good for printing from a colour managed perspective. The only problem being that there is no facility to soft proof the image before printing. You can however control the output colour via a print profile and rendering intent.
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Choose the Printer that the image will print on. You can also choose a print size here.
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Page Setup: Choose the paper size you are going to print on.
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Center Image: If you want to position the image somewhere different on the page, click Center image off. For example this is useful if you want to print an A5 image on an A4 sheet. Click the check box off and move the image to the top of the page using the Top offset box.
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This is where the colour conversions are controlled:
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Colour Handling: Select Photoshop Manages Colors. This will instruct Photoshop to make the conversion from the source profile (document) to the printer profile. Make sure to turn off any colour management in the printer driver.
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Source Space: This is picked up from the colour space you have selected as your working space (in this case Adobe RGB (1998) or from a profile that is embed ed in the image.
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Printer Preferences: Here you can select the printer driver settings for the paper you are printing on. Make sure to select the settings that the profile was made with.
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Printer Profile: Choose the profile for the paper and printer you are going to print on.
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Rendering Intent: This controls how Photoshop converts out of gamut colours from the image into the print space. The two options generally used are Perceptual and Relative Colorimetric. They both produce a slightly different rendering and there is no right answer as to which one to use. Because there is no soft proofing feature in Photoshop Elements, you can not preview the intents before printing.
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When you press Print One, go to the printer you are using and make the driver selections that match the conditions that the printer profile was made under.
When the print emerges, wait a few minutes before evaluating the colour and tone under a good viewing light (such as Solux).
Soft Proofing in Photoshop
Soft proofing is the process of using a calibrated and profiled display to simulate a printing process, such as an inkjet printer or offset press. It is a huge advantage to have an accurate print profile of your print process and to view the changes that will take place to your image before it is printed. It gives you the opportunity to make edits to your image that are specific for the print process being used.
You need three things to make the process work:
- An accurately calibrated and profiled monitor
- An accurate print profile
- A D50 light viewing environment of appropriate brightness under which to view the prints.
If any of these elements are missing, the process will not work. For example, you may have a calibrated monitor and a print profile but be viewing your prints under a blue sky lit window where the colour temperature may be up to 12000K. Or you may have a new monitor that is 2x or 3x brighter than it should be relative to the paper brightness, resulting in prints that look "too dark".
One of the secrets to good soft proofing is to match the brightness of a white page on your monitor to the brightness of a white page viewed under the light you use to view your prints. Once you get this balance right, the screen proofs seem to fall into place.
A good guide is for a monitor brightness of about 90-100 cd/m2 and an illumination level on the print of about 400-500lux.
For more information on lighting, see our Lighting Tips page.
Photoshop CS3/CS2
The process for soft proofing in Photoshop CS3 or CS2 is identical. From the View menu choose Proof Setup>Custom.
The custom Proof Setup window contains the controls for our soft proof.
Device to Simulate: Choose the output profile you want to soft proof. This may be an inkjet profile as we see here or it could be a CMYK offset press profile.
Rendering Intent: This is the method by which out of gamut colours are mapped from your document to the printer. Often a colourful image in a space such as Adobe RGB or an even wider one like ProPhoto RGB will contain colours that can not be printed directly on the printer. These colours have to be moved into the print space and the Rendering Intent tells the colour conversion engine how to do this. The two most commonly used Intents are Relative Colorimetric and Perceptual and they will both produce slightly different renderings of the image.
Relative Colorimetric will preserve all of the colours that are contained in both the print space and the document space but will clip any colours that lie outside the print space. These colours will be clipped to the edge of the colour gamut of the print space on the same hue angle as the original colour. In other words, if you have a very saturated red, such as in a red rose petal, but those saturated reds contain subtle tonal changes and all of these reds are outside the printer gamut, all those subtle tones will be clipped to the brightest red of that same hue that the printer can produce. We print maybe 90% of our images using this intent.
Perceptual will not clip the colours but will move all of the colours in the image relative to each other to maintain the same relationships. The result is that all the colours in the image will shift slightly but will be perceived to be close to the original. It will attempt to maintain the subtle tones of the rose petals that may be destroyed by a Relative intent. We use this rendering less often but it is suitable for some images. It sometimes results in more open shadow tones and a lighter overall print.
There is no right answer as to which intent to use. It is best look at your image with both and decide which suits the image.
Display Options - Simulate Paper Colour: This option is one that is used by personal preference. We use it all the time as we find that it provides a more realistic screen rendering of the tonal range of the print. It uses the black and white points of the black ink and the paper white to scale the contrast of the preview on screen. The result can be quite dramatic and this option is sometimes called the "Make my image look ugly" check box.
Typically monitors have a higher contrast ration (the difference between black and white) than a print. The black on screen appears deep and the white is bright, crisp and often blue. When Photoshop displays an image using a profiled monitor, it scales anything that is white in the image to the brightest white the display can produce. Similarly it scales the black to the deepest black. These parameters are stored in the display profile.
When we check the Simulate Paper Color option, Photoshop produces an Absolute Colorimetric rendering of the image on screen, the white dulls and the black becomes weaker. This effect is most evident when previewing a matte paper profile and can be quite disconcerting when first viewed. The eye adapts to this view quite quickly once you know what to expect. Some users look away while they turn this option on and then look back at the screen so as to not see the visual change.
The advantage of using this option is that you can make tonal or saturation adjustments to your image before you print it knowing what the final contrast ratio of the print will be. For example canvas has a low dynamic range so we typically add contrast and saturation to the image before we print it. Viewing the image through the profile with Paper Simulation allows us to edit the image with respect to how it will print.
Black Point Compensation: Leave this on always.
Save: Use this option to save your previewing options as a preset. Then when you want to preview this process again later you only need to select the preview condition from the list in the Proof Setup menu. We suggest saving a proofing condition for both the Relative Colorimetric and Perceptual intents so you can choose which is best for the particular image.
Important: When you have finished proofing your image and want to print it, make sure that the image is printed with the same settings that the profile was made with. Otherwise your soft proof will not be accurately reflecting the output process and your proof will not match your print.
Photoshop CS and 7
The procedure and options are the same as for CS3/CS2 although that Simulate Paper Color and Simulate Ink Black are just called Paper White and Ink Black as shown below. Read the above section for full procedure description.
Photoshop Elements 6:
Photoshop Elements does not allow soft proofing. You are restricted to screen previews of the colour space of the document only.
Download PDFs
| File Name | Description | Download. |
|---|---|---|
| Photoshop CS3 | Instructions for printing from Photoshop CS3 |  |
| Photoshop CS2 | Instructions for printing from Photoshop CS2 | |
| Photoshop CS & 7 | Instructions for printing from Photoshop CS and Photoshop 7 | |