Adobe Photoshop Training with Dan Margulis

Dan Margulis Applied Color Theory

Tagging Files for CTP

Date: Sat, 08 May 2004 07:41:19 -0000

From: "al_qhatani"

Subject: ICC for CTF & CTP

Hi everyone.

I am working as production coordinator for a magazine publisher in Saudi Arabia. We do not print our magazines but outsource it instead.

We supply them with a CD with our PageMaker files, all fonts and hi-res pictures, tagged with our own icc SWOP 21% dotgain.

However, we were informed by our management that on the next issue we will be switching printers through bidding, ergo we don't know who's going to win the bid and that if they are using a CTF or a CTP.

I don't know which direction to go. I hope you could offer me your 2-cents.

1) will it be safe for us to save all our work in Adobe RGB, and only convert to final CMYK when we are sure if it's going to be separated using CTF or CTP.

2) what will happen if I send our job with a different dotgain setting embedded in it. Does dotgain setting affect the actual film or plate separation or just our softproof preview.

Many thanks.

Ahmed Saleh

Saudi Arabia

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Date: Sat, 08 May 2004 23:33:02 -0000

From: Stephen Marsh

Subject: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

Ahmed writes:

I am working as production coordinator for a magazine publisher

in Saudi Arabia. We do not print our magazines but outsource it

instead.

This seems fairly common.

We supply them with a CD with our PageMaker files, all fonts

and hi-res pictures, tagged with our own icc SWOP 21% dotgain.

Perhaps less so...

QXP and perhaps AID are often more common, APM perhaps less so for magazine layouts...

Have you looked into the supply of high res PDF if your printers prepress section can deal with them hassle free?

There are many advantages, including file sizes for the pages or and the file being more 'stable/static' than a layout file which requires fonts and images to be correctly linked and the possibility for error.

PDF may not always be hassle free, but when it works well it works very well indeed and there are usually more benefits than disadvantages.

Of course, this would be tested first and not put straight into production.

However, we were informed by our management that on the next

issue we will be switching printers through bidding, ergo we

don't know who's going to win the bid and that if they are using a

CTF or a CTP.

Yes, it is always 'fun' when critical aspects of production suddenly change and results are doubtful or unknown.

I don't know which direction to go. I hope you could offer me your

2-cents.

I would try not to make any hard decisions until you know more info, unless production is going to be put out and you will not be able to meet the press deadline etc.

1) will it be safe for us to save all our work in Adobe RGB, and

only convert to final CMYK when we are sure if it's going to be

separated using CTF or CTP.

Is this your normal practise of placing A98 RGB in APM, or do you convert to CMYK earlier in the process and place CMYK?

If placing RGB, would you then ensure that you convert every placed image to CMYK or whatever print mode was required, using Photoshop - or would you attempt to use ICC CM in PageMaker for the placed images and convert on the fly (not ideal, but it can be done).

What would happen if an A98 RGB file was imaged to film/plate as if it was a CMYK image (incorrectly handled)...if you miss some RGB images is this going to be an issue?

If you convert to a CMYK as per normal early in the production process and then you find that the new condition is very different with dot gain or stock or inks...is it possible to convert to the new CMYK from the old CMYK or would you be better served by using the RGB originals (if they still exist etc).

I think you need to consider these and many other aspects of production, and how any changes made may affect things down the line.

I have only been thinking of editorial images, what about the all important

advertising which pays the bills? What if this is screwed up? Often

ads are supplied final and are not edited unless one is explicity told to.

Are the supplied ads going to be the right tone and colour?

2) what will happen if I send our job with a different dotgain

setting embedded in it. Does dotgain setting affect the actual film

or plate separation or just our softproof preview.

When viewing a RGB file via a CMYK softproof the dotgain is being applied on the fly.

When converting to the destination CMYK profile, the dotgain is applied to the data - the separations contain altered tonal data taking the gain into account.

When viewing a CMYK file, the dotgain in the tagged profile or the assumed profile is used to display the tonality of the numbers in the file for on-screen preview or for converting back to other modes.

A CMYK file is device dependent, stock, inks and dot gain are all

taken into account when the separation is made.

There are two issues in this last question of yours:

a) Tagging a CMYK profile

b) The CMYK values/numbers in the file

The values/numbers describe the colour/tone. If the numbers are not right for the gain of the process, the file will be too light or too dark.

In most CMYK PS workflows the CMYK values are simply passed on unaltered to output with no colour management. The profile means little once the image is in layout software for many users, and in some cases may be worse than having no profile (this has been debated many times in the past) - but the profile is good for Photoshop.

If ICC CM is being used, then the profile in the placed file may become more of an issue - since the profile may be used for a conversion at print time.

Stephen Marsh.

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Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 06:23:34 EDT

From: Dan Margulis

Subject: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

Ahmed writes,

1) will it be safe for us to save all our work in Adobe RGB, and

only convert to final CMYK when we are sure if it's going to be

separated using CTF or CTP.

If this is going to an unknown printer with whom you have had no previous contact, merely knowing whether they are CTP isn't enough to alter anything. If they are both film and CTP in the same shop, they may have modified their CTP curves to match the film. Or, there may be other process control issues that outweigh the question of how the plates are made. Unless you get more information before the job begins, you're basically stuck with just sending them CMYK files as normal, but without an embedded profile. Then, for the second issue they do, you'll be in a better shape to react to their conditions.

2) what will happen if I send our job with a different dotgain

setting embedded in it. Does dotgain setting affect the actual film

or plate separation or just our softproof preview.

If the dot gain was changed before the file was converted to CMYK, it affects the separation. If it was changed after the CMYK conversion, it affects screen preview only. If you don't know anything about the printer, you shouldn't embed any kind of profile.

Dan Margulis

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Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 08:21:53 -0400

From:John Castronovo

Subject: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

We've been through this before, but I'll never understand how it could hurt if it's the correct profile. It'll probably be ignored by the printer anyway, but it might help someone too.

john c.

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Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 10:34:34 -0600

From: Chris Murphy

Subject: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

On May 10, 2004, at 6:21 AM, jc castronovo wrote:

We've been through this before, but I'll never understand how it could hurt

if it's the correct profile. It'll probably be ignored by the printer

anyway, but it might help someone too.

Statistically there is a higher likelihood it will be ignored. But the other two possibilities are:

1. automatic conversion (i.e. Convert to Working CMYK type policy behavior. This is something ID 2 does by default and won't not do so long as color management is turned on, unless you manually turn off color management on a per image basis)

2. embedded profile preserved but conversion does not occur

Clearly case #2 is benign. Case #1 could be benign or it could be a disaster. Really, the recommendation to not embed a profile in CMYK images is exclusively related to submitting CMYK to people you haven't had the color management talk with.

In a sense it's like airport security. Treat everyone as though they're guilty. (That airport security is rather insecure makes it a not so good analogy but I'm ignoring that for now.) It's not particularly rational but in most workflows it's better to live with problems you know than to also have to live with problem you know and don't know (those having to do with trouble shooting embedded profiles in the off chance a bad setting will cause a problem).

What I generally recommend, is for people to save CMYK without embedded profile, but archive the job/project with the profile used for making the separations. That way it can be used as source for the sophisticated user who comes across this project at some later date.

Chris Murphy

Color Remedies (TM)

www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor

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Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 15:02:29 -0400

From: "Remaley, Dan"

Subject: RE: ICC for CTF & CTP

Nearly all scans (CMYK) are designed for SWOP. Including sheetfed or web. - Density and dot gain specs. for (GRACoL #2 (155-175 line) are the same as SWOP (133 line) specs. Traditionally Web's had more gain but by increasing the line screen in sheetfed, we create more gain. Most printers are around these specs,. unless they are CTP linear and print with a low 15% midtone gain. Free pdf's on process control and gray balance at <www.gain.net> under process control.

Dan Remaley

Process Control Mgr.

Graphic Arts Technical Foundation

412.741.6860x450

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Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 23:38:09 -0400

From:John Castronovo

Subject: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

From: "Chris Murphy"

Clearly case #2 is benign. Case #1 could be benign or it could be a

disaster. Really, the recommendation to not embed a profile in CMYK

images is exclusively related to submitting CMYK to people you haven't

had the color management talk with.

If case 2 is benign, then ok. But if case 1 is to be a disaster, it could only be because the wrong profile was embedded or profile management hasn't been set up correctly on the rip. The first instance is the responsibility of the person submitting the file and it's unlikely that the wrong profile is attached at this point in time. The chances are very good that it represents the way the guy submitting the file converted it. If his needs are special and he doesn't use profiles, fine. Don't use it and no harm done. In the second instance, the idiot running the rip shouldn't have color management turned on to convert incorrectly if it was never set up to work in the first place. If he's not comfortable using it, DON'T - then there's no harm embedding it either if it's ignored anyway.

I'll tell you this. If I embed the correct profile with a CMYK file that I submit and it doesn't print correctly because someone converted it incorrectly, there'll be a shoot out to the death. I'm getting tired of this B.S. There's no reason for it. I respect other peoples' profiles all day long and we've been doing it for years. If there's any doubt, we call. I expect the same from other suppliers who consider themselves professionals.

Dan, I don't want this to become another flame war, so just delete this is it offends you, but geez folks, get with it.

john c.

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Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 12:37:45 -0000

From: Stephen Marsh

Subject: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

John writes in reply to Chris.

If case 2 is benign, then ok. But if case 1 is to be a disaster, it could

only be because the wrong profile was embedded or profile management hasn't

been set up correctly on the rip.

John, when this issue comes up, the list is usually referring to the supply of CMYK raster files which are used in layout software and the layout software is not altering the final values of the CMYK file (in most cases ICC CM may be off or set to not convert etc). Layout apps when used as many do use them for the common CMYK PostScript separated film/plate work-flow, do not use ICC CM to do the seps from layout (seps are done in Photoshop and simply passed through the print stream).

As discussed in the past, RGB and CMYK are often handled very differently. What makes sense for one, does not always make sense for the other.

Users such as myself prepare with care to the target condition taking all the responsibility of file prep for this condition.

Sorry to shout, but -

WE DO NOT WANT OR NEED A HUMAN OR RIP ALTERING OUR COLOUR NUMBERS FURTHER DOWN THE LINE (not including proofing, only output of plate or film).

There is no debate on this point.

If the conditions change, then I change the files to suit and resupply the data. If this is not possible/realistic, then I am taken 'out of the loop' and someone else can take the heat or the praise for the image and file prep etc. If this is happening, then I no longer want to know or care.

The first instance is the responsibility

of the person submitting the file and it's unlikely that the wrong profile

is attached at this point in time.

Correct, the person handing off the file is preparing it for the known target condition then there _is_ no need for altering the file - it is simply output from layout software with no alteration of the values in the file.

It does not matter if the profile is correct or not - that a CMYK image in this scenario has a profile can cause action to be taken (alteration of colour values) when no profile may mean no action is taken (no alteration of colour values).

The chances are very good that it

represents the way the guy submitting the file converted it. If his needs

are special and he doesn't use profiles, fine. Don't use it and no harm

done.

So now you have no problem with untagged CMYK?

CMYK use is not as easy to pigeon hole as RGB use.

In the second instance, the idiot running the rip shouldn't have color

management turned on to convert incorrectly if it was never set up to work

in the first place. If he's not comfortable using it, DON'T - then there's

no harm embedding it either if it's ignored anyway.

A 'colorimetrically correct' conversion will alter the colour numbers in the file, to in theory make the same visual response. This is good on the computer...but a press is very different.

Imagine a file overlapping an element in layout software, both have the same CMYK colour values for a seamless blend of colour...but someone converts the image file but not the layout...the new mix of numbers should equate to the same LAB colour as the old...but back in the real world a printing press does not behave in a tame fashion and the two colours will no longer be seamless.

This is only one example.

Another could be a CMYK file with a hand crafted K plate for fine black

detail, which then get's butchered into CMY with little black ink etc.

I'll tell you this. If I embed the correct profile with a CMYK file that I

submit and it doesn't print correctly because someone converted it

incorrectly, there'll be a shoot out to the death.

That is lots of fun, but I prefer to ensure that the job works fine first go.

I'm getting tired of this B.S. There's no reason for it. I respect other peoples' profiles all day

long and we've been doing it for years. If there's any doubt, we call. I

expect the same from other suppliers who consider themselves professionals.

Again, bad experience can cause some to take out extra insurance.

If a profile is meaningless to a certain work-flow, then I would say that perhaps it is B.S. to include them and mystery meat is valid?

Yes, if we are talking of handing off images which are not directly linked/used in a layout and the next user needs to edit/view them etc and does want to do more than simply output the files numbers...then yes, a separate profile or even one tagged into every file may be OK.

It all depends.

Dan, I don't want this to become another flame war, so just delete this is

it offends you, but geez folks, get with it.

We are 'with it' John - it's just that not everyone has the same idea of what 'it' is and should be.

As Chris points out, a separate supply of the profile which represents the aim-point is very workable and is better than tagging 1mb of data into every file, when the profile is redundant to most final output for CMYK seps...and when a profile may invite 'action' of some sort where as no profile would not. There is an archived thread about 30,000 images which all use the same profile - is there really a need to tag each file when/if a work-flow can be used which assumes the supplied profile as the 'tag'?

Just for the record, I usually do tag - but there are times when I make a hard decision not to...this could be for internal or external work-flow reasons...it all depends.

Stephen Marsh.

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Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 09:54:58 -0400

From:John Castronovo

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

From: "Stephen Marsh"

As Chris points out, a separate supply of the profile which

represents the aim-point is very workable and is better than tagging

1mb of data into every file, when the profile is redundant to most

final output for CMYK seps...and when a profile may invite 'action'

of some sort where as no profile would not. There is an archived

thread about 30,000 images which all use the same profile - is there

really a need to tag each file when/if a work-flow can be used which

assumes the supplied profile as the 'tag'?

Just for the record, I usually do tag - but there are times when I

make a hard decision not to...this could be for internal or external

work-flow reasons...it all depends.

This is all well and good, and I agree with both of you on these points. What I'll never understand is how simply providing more information about my file may invite disaster at the hands of some idiot - and that idiot is defended by this group.

john c.

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Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 11:52:11 -0600

From: Chris Murphy

Subject: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

On May 10, 2004, at 9:38 PM, jc castronovo wrote:

If case 2 is benign, then ok. But if case 1 is to be a disaster, it could

only be because the wrong profile was embedded or profile management hasn't

been set up correctly on the rip.

Automatic conversion can be a disaster very easily, even if the source and destination profiles used are the exact right profiles. Black only drop shadows become four color; black only text becomes four color; two color text becomes 3 or 4 color text; yellow anything will become contaminated and is often noticeable; any unique channel effects applied in CMYK are largely lost when converted such as specific channel sharpening, or more importantly black generation used which is both image specific and output device specific.

Most of these problems go away if there is perfect register and process control. So if the output device is a digital press or ink jet printer, repurposing can actually be a GOOD thing. Four color black text with perfect register is more dense than black only. Who wouldn't want that?

There is more to color reproduction than colorimetry. Colorimetry can be exactly correct but fail to reproduce the appropriate results. A simple example of this is total ink limits. If I have 8 inks available, I have 800% ink possible. But obviously I still have a conventional ink limit because it's still an ink on paper process. A profile built without an ink limit would produce up to 800% total area coverage separations. It will soft and hard proof these separations as though they will hold detail, but we know that won't happen.

The first instance is the responsibility

of the person submitting the file and it's unlikely that the wrong profile

is attached at this point in time. The chances are very good that it

represents the way the guy submitting the file converted it. If his needs

are special and he doesn't use profiles, fine. Don't use it and no harm

done. In the second instance, the idiot running the rip shouldn't have color

management turned on to convert incorrectly if it was never set up to work

in the first place. If he's not comfortable using it, DON'T - then there's

no harm embedding it either if it's ignored anyway.

The problem is always a downstream one. And the upstream person really has only a blunt instrument to prevent most undesired conversions: not embedding profiles in CMYK images. I don't like the blunt instrument, but I know that it works with hard headed workflows, which happen to still be in the majority.

I'll tell you this. If I embed the correct profile with a CMYK file that I

submit and it doesn't print correctly because someone converted it

incorrectly, there'll be a shoot out to the death.

There is no doubt that you will be in the right, and they will be in the wrong. But you are the pedestrian and the printer is a Mack truck. As you walk into the crosswalk confident you have right of way, are you really going to let that Mack truck clobber you? After all, you'll be in the right and the Mack truck driver will be in the wrong. You'll be dead, but maybe that's beside the point?

It's a case of choosing your battles, and by default I'm unwilling to recommend other people have this kind of fight with live jobs while not having the color management talk up front with the printer. Debating the merits of color management upfront I think is perfectly valid, and if you're in a position to have a cow in front of the printer, or even go so far as to pull the job from him because he isn't adequately color management savvy, I support that also. But to blindly submit a job with a deadline that has a bunch of embedded profiles in it without having a conversation with the printer, is just asking for trouble, even if it's his screw up due to lack of color management expertise.

Ask for trouble, if you want, when you have a way out. Don't ask for trouble when you don't have the time for it.

I'm getting tired of this

B.S. There's no reason for it. I respect other peoples' profiles all day

long and we've been doing it for years. If there's any doubt, we call. I

expect the same from other suppliers who consider themselves professionals.

Not everyone is in a position to dictate the printer to be used.

If you do the exact right thing even in InDesign today it can goose your black generation. Let's take the case of three RGB images and three CMYK images. Each CMYK image was separated with a different profile, using different amounts of black generation. Profiles are embedded. RGB images have a profile embedded as well.

Place into InDesign (or QuarkXPress for that matter). You have the option to do nothing to the CMYK images in InDesign CS and QuarkXPress. So their embedded profile is effectively ignored. But lets say you don't do this, you're going to color manage the whole thing. What you get is all three RGB images get converted to a single CMYK profile with a single black generation; and all three CMYK images get reseparated with that same CMYK profile. So now everything is using the same amount of black generation. The sophistication of color management in a late or later binding workflow is risky and what you're proposing is a *possibility* of late/later binding.

Late binding workflows are flexible, and they can be very efficient. But they are a lot more complicated. Not everyone wants to take on that level of complication.

Chris Murphy

Color Remedies (TM)

www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor

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Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 12:02:03 -0600

From: Chris Murphy

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

On May 11, 2004, at 7:54 AM, jc castronovo wrote:

This is all well and good, and I agree with both of you on these points.

What I'll never understand is how simply providing more information about my

file may invite disaster at the hands of some idiot - and that idiot is

defended by this group.

The idiot is not being defended. I'm simply saying he exists. If you want to wrestle with an idiot, it's your choice. But I'm not going to recommend people plan on doing this from the get go, and get themselves into a potential legal battle to prove they are in the right and the idiot is in the wrong. Of course they'd win, but what a friggin pain in the ass.

It's a lot more efficient to negotiate this in advance with a conversation. If the printer flips out over the idea of color management, embedded profiles, or whatever, then the efficient, logical, low stress options are simple: a.) don't use this printer; b.) find out exactly where he's planted land mines and avoid them so you can get to the other side.

Chris Murphy

Color Remedies (TM)

www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 00:53:31 EDT

From: Dan Margulis

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

John Castronovo writes,

I'm getting tired of this B.S. There's no reason for it. I respect other

peoples' profiles all day long and we've been doing it for years. If there's any

doubt, we call. I expect the same from other suppliers who consider

themselves professionals. Dan, I don't want this to become another flame war, so just

delete this is it offends you, but geez folks, get with it.

This is like the boxer who continues to fight on after his corner has thrown in the towel. Since the last time this tiresome topic surfaced here, the subject has become moot. After six years of resistance-is-futile rhetoric like the above, effective with Photoshop CS, embedded CMYK profiles are ignored by default. This ends any possibility of this becoming a standard workflow in anybody's lifetime, and renders the "get with it" comment above approximately equivalent to an assurance that Betamax is the format of the future and that we should forget all this VHS and DVD nonsense.

What I'll never understand is how simply providing more information about my

file may invite disaster at the hands of some idiot - and that idiot is

defended by this group.

You have expressed such befuddlement many times in the past, and in response, several group members have given you example after example after example after example after example of how embedded CMYK profiles have caused problems down the line. Adobe's action in pulling the plug speaks for itself, but I can add yet one more example: at the close of the most recent thread, both you and another advocate of this workflow indicated that in a certain job (admittedly not a particularly simple one) you would have used a correctly embedded CMYK profile to convert, in a situation where in fact this would have ruined the job. This error in understanding the purpose of the profile is discussed in

http: //www.ledet.com/margulis/ACT-postings/DailyLife/ACT-Deliver-in-LAB.htm

(see my message of 7 August 2003 explaining why using the embedded profile in conversion would have been an error.)

Granted that your company is considerably more sophisticated about these matters than the average printer, and still is capable of destroying a job by misunderstanding the purpose of an embedded CMYK profile, the idea of sending such a document to an unknown printer makes sense only to those who enjoy playing the blame game.

Dan Margulis

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Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 22:51:36 -0400

From:John Castronovo

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

From: "Chris Murphy"

The idiot is not being defended. I'm simply saying he exists. If you

want to wrestle with an idiot, it's your choice. But I'm not going to

recommend people plan on doing this from the get go, and get themselves

into a potential legal battle to prove they are in the right and the

idiot is in the wrong. Of course they'd win, but what a friggin pain in

the ass.

And an unnecessary pain in the ass it is. How can you be so sure that the same idiot isn't going to one day assign the missing profile to your image and then convert it to what he feels he should be using? The real problem is people doing things to your files without asking, and not whether there's a profile attached to it. If you don't want it used, tell them to ignore it (they probably will anyway from what you're saying) or don't embed one at all if that's what the job requires. I couldn't care much either way. On the other hand, if I put one there, shouldn't it be easy to prevent it from causing trouble? Is it that hard?

john c.

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 09:50:05 -0600

From: Chris Murphy

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

On May 11, 2004, at 10:53 PM, Dan Margulis wrote:

This is like the boxer who continues to fight on after his corner has thrown

in the towel. Since the last time this tiresome topic surfaced here, the subject

has become moot. After six years of resistance-is-futile rhetoric like the

above, effective with Photoshop CS, embedded CMYK profiles are ignored by

default.

Yeah.

Photoshop of all versions have ignored tags in CMYK images by default. And in Photoshop 6, 7, and 8 when the policy is set to Off, not only do you get blatant purging of this metadata, but by default Photoshop doesn't embed a new profile into the image.

Even if the next versions of Adobe applications handle this better it will take many years before the remnants of Photoshop CS 1 and earlier are effectively irrelevant in this context.

PDF, OS X, InDesign, color management, and other new technologies fracture the market. They increase the disparity between those who sharpen the saw on a regular basis, and those who don't have the time or interest in staying on the bleeding edge, and counting their fingers every other day.

Chris Murphy

Color Remedies (TM)

www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 09:40:59 -0600

From: Chris Murphy

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

On May 11, 2004, at 8:51 PM, jc castronovo wrote:

And an unnecessary pain in the ass it is. How can you be so sure that the

same idiot isn't going to one day assign the missing profile to your image

and then convert it to what he feels he should be using?

I'm reasonably confident in the law of averages that someone who has already tried doing this has been ejected out of the nearest airlock already. And it's also unlikely that my project is the first one he's going to try this on.

I worry about this sort of thing happening like I worry about a shotgun being pointed at me the instant I walk into a print shop. It's really quite unlikely. Doing the wrong thing has a funny way of exposing itself in pretty obvious ways.

The real problem is

people doing things to your files without asking, and not whether there's a

profile attached to it.

There's no question. But desktop application software has made it too easy for the unknowledgable individual to plug in settings that are not at all appropriate for their workflow. The CMYK working space setting is a very straightforward thing. The Convert to Working CMYK policy is not. Yet both are equally accessible to users.

If you don't want it used, tell them to ignore it

(they probably will anyway from what you're saying) or don't embed one at

all if that's what the job requires. I couldn't care much either way. On the

other hand, if I put one there, shouldn't it be easy to prevent it from

causing trouble? Is it that hard?

Absolutely they *should* ignore it instead of us needing to strip valuable metadata. But I'm not going to have this debate AFTER the fact in the unlikely event the job gets screwed up merely because there are embedded profiles. I'd rather find out where the bodies are buried before I get started so my job isn't the one getting hit on the back of the head with a shovel. I prefer to be pro-active.

Besides, there is functionally little difference for me to submit my images as untagged CMYK, and then include the CMYK profile along with the images. Anyone sophisticated enough will know what to do. Anyone not sophisticated enough will ignore it, including all of their improperly configured applications.

This is effectively how PDF/X-1a works. All objects are untagged. They are /DeviceCMYK. But they are implicitly tagged with a non-binding profile referred to as the OutputIntent. The OutputIntent is used as the source profile for proofing. By default it even overrides the working space settings in Acrobat 6. But when it comes time to print, by default it prints /DeviceCMYK unless you direct your application to produce a proof.

I am a proponent of metadata. And embedded ICC profiles are metadata. Stripping them or not including them is a form of data loss. It's not OK and we should all be working to isolate the problems associated with using such metadata and work on solving this problems. But hell if I'm going to stand on a hill and die when the easiest short term solution when working with unsophisticated printers is to just not give them an excuse to hose my project.

Chris Murphy

Color Remedies (TM)

www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 06:26:39 -0400

From:John Castronovo

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

From: Dan Margulis

You have expressed such befuddlement many times in the past, and in response,

several group members have given you example after example after example

after example after example of how embedded CMYK profiles have caused problems

down the line. Adobe's action in pulling the plug speaks for itself, but I can

add yet one more example: at the close of the most recent thread, both you and

another advocate of this workflow indicated that in a certain job (admittedly

not a particularly simple one) you would have used a correctly embedded CMYK

profile to convert, in a situation where in fact this would have ruined the job.

First, Adobe didn't pull any plug, they just changed the default setting in CS to 'not embed'. One can still change that. Second, you've got it backwards on the strange embedded CMYK profile.

My July 31, 1993 post was as follows:

We just got a CMYK file from France that came over the T1, and thank GOD it had an embedded profile. It was unique, and we never would've guessed that the photo was the color it was by assigning anything out of PhotoShop! We checked a few just to make sure that nothing looked better. Any flavor of SWOP was a mile off. There was no proof and even our client didn't know what it was supposed to look like. Using their profile, as it turned out, it was right on. How else can you do that?

Of all the reports of embedded profiles causing trouble that I've been shown, the only complaint that still holds water is the fact that it increases file size by about 500k. Some fool may see a profile, and do something stupid because of it, but we stand just as much chance of the fool doing something to the same file without the profile.

Granted that your company is considerably more sophisticated about these

matters than the average printer, and still is capable of destroying a job by

misunderstanding the purpose of an embedded CMYK profile, the idea of sending such

a document to an unknown printer makes sense only to those who enjoy playing

the blame game.

I don't think that we ever destroyed a job because of a profile - a missing one maybe. We can see when the wrong profile is there and then we change it, call or ignore it, but this is rare now since most people aren't using PhotoShop 5 any more.

I'm trying to stop the blame game. I never want to hear that my job was destroyed BECAUSE I used profiles. (BTW, this hasn't happened yet.) That's no excuse and it's not that hard to turn off auto-convert. If you have special needs that can be better addressed by not embedding, I have no problem except that it makes my job harder to guess if I get that file some time in the future, but there shouldn't be a problem if I do embed profiles for more routine work. I don't believe in setting traps for printers to fall into, and I don't play Russian roulette with my work. Profiles are there to help, and used properly, they do.

john c.

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 14:33:35 EDT

From: Dan Margulis

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

John Castronovo writes,

First, Adobe didn't pull any plug, they just changed the default setting in

CS to 'not embed'. One can still change that.

No. They changed the default to *ignore completely*. Six years ago, they introduced the concept of the embedded profile as "the universal language of color", soon to be mandatory in every file, to which printers and service bureaus had six months to a year to adapt or die, and without which quality reproduction is impossible, and to which resistance is futile. Now, no matter how carefully you make and embed your profile, you can rest assured that the overwhelming majority of Photoshop CS users will never even know that it's there, let alone make use of it. Thus, if you want somebody to assume that the embedded profile is correct, you have no choice but to call that person up and tell him what to do (just as you would have had to do pre-1998), since the norm is now to ignore it completely.

Think 8-track tape. Think 9600-baud modems. Think 44-megabyte Syquests. The embedded CMYK profile as a guarantor of color integrity is deader than any of them.

Second, you've got it backwards on the strange embedded CMYK profile.

No, you've picked up the wrong quote. I was referring to the case where I would submit a CMYK file to a printer with instructions to print it exactly as is, notwithstanding that I did not know what the CMYK conditions were. The print house hypothetically needs to convert to RGB in order to pull a proof. Both you and the other advocate of this workflow indicated that you wanted me to embed a profile so that it could be used to make an accurate conversion to RGB so that the RGB output would match what I saw on my screen. But, as the objective is not to match my screen but rather the final CMYK output, this would have destroyed the job. The proper decision would have been to treat the file as untagged.

It is precisely to avoid such disastrously incorrect decisions that sensible people have stayed away from embedding CMYK profiles unless they're confident that they will be used correctly down the line. The Photoshop CS decision simply accepts reality. Now if we only get a few more choices in the Color Settings dialog box, people might actually be able to configure Photoshop so that it could give meaningful alerts about incoming tagged files, but that's another story.

Dan Margulis

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 16:11:40 -0400

From: "Lathan, Kim"

Subject: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

To John C......

So was color management, using ICC profiles, etc easy for you to understand when you first started? Maybe you are a really smart guy and picked it up right away or maybe you struggled with it like a lot of people have or still do.

You should remember that many printers AND designers, AND photographers, especially a lot of small to medium ones (and even some big ones) have only recently become true converts/users of color management as we know it today. And it has only been recently that anyone has put together a nice book (Real World Color Management) that brought enough information together in one place for a lot of people to finally begin to grasp some of its intricacies and interrelationships.

I have been using color management and creating/using profiles for years now, but I do still remember what it was like to 'wrap my head' around the concepts/theory. Yes, I do find that embedded profiles can cause some issues, it depends on the device they are going to and the applications being used. I also know that sometimes the profiles are there for a reason and should be treated as such. But in the not so distant past, Photoshop on a normal install would embed profiles by default if someone did not realize what was happening. Profiles were being embedded by people with no particular knowledge of its use or application in a lot of cases.

So I find it very unfair that you call people idiots. You can do/say what you want, but that is an awful way to portray a group of people who may or may not have knowledge of a piece of technology that you find so easy to understand. Are there people using it incorrectly or do not understand? YES! But education and working together on this is the key to understanding.

Warm regards,

Kim Lathan

Color/Digital Proofing Department Manager

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 14:22:57 -0600

From: Chris Murphy

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

On May 12, 2004, at 12:33 PM, Dan Margulis wrote:

No. They changed the default to *ignore completely*.

Changed from what to what and when? Photoshop 6, 7 and CS have the same CMYK policy, Off, by default. That means don't embed profiles, and ignore embedded profiles.

And really what we need are workflows that do a vastly better job of ignoring CMYK profiles by default with a higher barrier to turning this feature on. That would actually make it possible to safely embed profiles in CMYK images, which could then be utilized by those who know how to leverage them.

Chris Murphy

Color Remedies (TM)

www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 15:35:18 -0600

From: Jim Donovan

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

Good truthful reality call dan,as usual. I sometimes get the impression that people actually believe that quality pre-profile 4/c reproduction never happened and was not possible.The fact is coffee table quality is done daily completely ignoring cmyk profiles. I think alot of people don't see any reason to dive into cmyk profiles when they do top notch work without them.Especially if they spun color for a living without cmyk profiles(or mac's for that matter!!) Don't think people resist change,just have a realistic "if it aint broke don't fix it",approach. jim donovan

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 17:49:14 -0400

From: Dan Margulis

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

Chris Murphy writes,

Changed from what to what and when? Photoshop 6, 7 and CS have the same

CMYK policy, Off, by default. That means don't embed profiles, and

ignore embedded profiles.

a) in previous versions this is only true if one sticks with web defaults, and there is a strong prompt to avoid this. Therefore, one could call anyone who didn't do so a "fool".

b) in previous versions, even if one used the web defaults, the embedded profiles were not ignored--there was an alert. Therefore, anyone who ignored the alert could be called an "idiot."

In contrast, Photoshop CS, all settings, by default ignores the CMYK profile altogether, no muss, no bother. Hence, if anyone embeds a CMYK profile now, it would be nonsensical to assume that anyone will pay attention to it unless they have been specifically directed to.

And really what we need are workflows that do a vastly better job of

ignoring CMYK profiles by default with a higher barrier to turning this

feature on. That would actually make it possible to safely embed

profiles in CMYK images, which could then be utilized by those who know

how to leverage them.

Yes. That's the tragedy of the whole thing--it could have been avoided and we could have been given a most useful tool. The catastrophic blunder that doomed the whole concept was, as Kim pointed out, that novices were coerced into embedding tags that they didn't understand, thereby discrediting the whole workflow.

Even today, there could still be major improvements made, for example,

*Even if your color management is turned OFF, OFF, OFF, Photoshop still embeds a profile by default if you have used the Convert to Profile command, and it has to be disabled manually.

*So many files have wrong profiles attached that anybody who receives a lot of files from strangers can't realistically ask for an alert on every file. What is needed is a) separate alert preferences for CMYK and RGB; and b) A way to respond to the alert saying "OK, don't alert me to this particular profile any more until the next time I quit Photoshop."

Dan Margulis

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 18:51:12 -0600

From: Chris Murphy

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

On May 12, 2004, at 3:35 PM, Jim Donovan wrote:

Good truthful reality call dan,as usual. I sometimes get the

impression that people actually believe that quality pre-profile 4/c

reproduction never happened and was not possible.

No one actually believes this. But making color separations is easier today than it used to be. The gotcha is that today we have a whole lot of output behaviors compared to the past.

The fact is coffee

table quality is done daily completely ignoring cmyk profiles.

That's news to me. Someone, somewhere it using a profile. Either they're using an ICC profile, or they're using some kind of proprietary table in a scanner, but either way it's a profile.

I think alot of people don't see any reason to dive into cmyk profiles

when they do top notch work without them.

With how many proof iterations? People do not get good separations for actual press conditions without some kind of profile.

Especially if they spun

color for a living without cmyk profiles(or mac's for that matter!!)

Don't think people resist change,just have a realistic "if it aint

broke don't fix it",approach. jim donovan

The notion that CMYK equates to a specific color is one that's been broken and discarded for a long time now. CMYK numbers without a reference point do not equate to specific colors. You make a generic separation using Photoshop defaults, you end up with a proof that you see needs to be edited sometimes significantly, before going to press. Yes that's what a proof is for, but if there had been an accurate profile to begin with the separation would have been a whole lot better in the first place.

Chris Murphy

Color Remedies (TM)

www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor

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Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 06:08:11 -0400

From:John Castronovo

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

From: Dan Margulis

No, you've picked up the wrong quote. I was referring to the case where I

would submit a CMYK file to a printer with instructions to print it exactly as

is, notwithstanding that I did not know what the CMYK conditions were. The print

house hypothetically needs to convert to RGB in order to pull a proof.

Both you and the other advocate of this workflow indicated that you wanted me to embed a profile so that it could be used to make an accurate conversion to RGB so that the RGB

output would match what I saw on my screen. But, as the objective is not to

match my screen but rather the final CMYK output, this would have destroyed the

job. The proper decision would have been to treat the file as untagged.

If I treat it as untagged and convert to RGB, doesn't the process assume whatever default CMYK color space setting is chosen in PhotoShop's color settings anyway? If you made your file for newsprint, and I convert to RGB without your file being tagged, I'll get the wrong result. The conversion to RGB has to assume something about your file. Why not give it the proper information?

john c.

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Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 05:12:08 -0400

From:John Castronovo

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

From: "Lathan, Kim"

So I find it very unfair that you call people idiots. You can do/say what

you want, but that is an awful way to portray a group of people who may or

may not have knowledge of a piece of technology that you find so easy to

understand. Are there people using it incorrectly or do not understand? YES!

But education and working together on this is the key to understanding.

Kim,

I don't think I called people who don't understand color management idiots, rather those who would hose my job because they don't know enough to turn it off if they don't understand it, are. We're not talking about minimum wage people here. These are professionals who do this for a living, there are big bucks being spent, and one would assume that for this degree of responsibility those in charge would know enough by now to either turn it off or do it right.

john c.

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Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 19:07:54 -0600

From: Chris Murphy

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

On May 12, 2004, at 3:49 PM, Dan Margulis wrote:

a) in previous versions this is only true if one sticks with web

defaults, and there is a strong prompt to avoid this. Therefore, one

could call anyone who didn't do so a "fool".

b) in previous versions, even if one used the web defaults, the

embedded profiles were not ignored--there was an alert. Therefore,

anyone who ignored the alert could be called an "idiot."

I see what you mean. The profile mismatch warning is disabled by default in Photoshop CS, but not in previous versions. The default setting of the warning dialog, however, is still to ignore the embedded profile and use working CMYK instead.

In contrast, Photoshop CS, all settings, by default ignores the CMYK

profile altogether, no muss, no bother. Hence, if anyone embeds a CMYK

profile now, it would be nonsensical to assume that anyone will pay

attention to it unless they have been specifically directed to.

Right.

Yes. That's the tragedy of the whole thing--it could have been avoided

and we could have been given a most useful tool. The catastrophic

blunder that doomed the whole concept was, as Kim pointed out, that

novices were coerced into embedding tags that they didn't understand,

thereby discrediting the whole workflow.

The short term solution of not embedding profiles in CMYK images makes sense until the root cause of problems associated with embedded profiles in a given workflow are found and solved. It does not make sense to blame metadata (embedded ICC profile in this case) for problems, but rather improper action on this metadata. Metadata itself does not change data, it merely describes it. If something wrong is happening, it technically isn't fair to blame the metadata.

Even today, there could still be major improvements made, for example,

*Even if your color management is turned OFF, OFF, OFF, Photoshop

still embeds a profile by default if you have used the Convert to

Profile command, and it has to be disabled manually.

The logic behind it is that it's the conversion equivalent of assign profile. If you have an untagged document, then explicitly tag it using assign, the profile is embedded by default. If you have any image and convert to something other than the working CMYK space, then the thought is that this image should have its numeric values defined by embedding a profile by default. It's not something that's going to work for everyone.

*So many files have wrong profiles attached that anybody who receives

a lot of files from strangers can't realistically ask for an alert on

every file.

Wrong profiles attached? Do you have an example of this and how it's occurring?

What is needed is a) separate alert preferences for CMYK and RGB; and

b) A way to respond to the alert saying "OK, don't alert me to this

particular profile any more until the next time I quit Photoshop."

I'd still consider this a work around for fundamentally busted behavior in various products. I'd rather see those flaws fixed rather than find work arounds.

Chris Murphy

Color Remedies (TM)

www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor

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Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 11:18:07 -0600

From: Chris Murphy

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

On May 13, 2004, at 3:12 AM, jc castronovo wrote:

I don't think I called people who don't understand color management idiots,

rather those who would hose my job because they don't know enough to turn it

off if they don't understand it, are. We're not talking about minimum wage

people here. These are professionals who do this for a living, there are big

bucks being spent, and one would assume that for this degree of

responsibility those in charge would know enough by now to either turn it

off or do it right.

Yeah, I don't disagree with your perspective on this. And I have a certain appreciation for those willing to die on hills like this one. But I don't think it's really practical for me to suggest everyone embed profiles in everything, and if the so-called professional hoses the job, that people should sue. Maybe lawsuits would be an effective means of coersion, but it's not merely the pre-press or print professionals fault when this stuff doesn't work correctly. There are bugs in software, and B.S. licensing agreements get software developers off the hook.

I think for now it makes more sense to not embed profiles in CMYK images without having an explicit conversation with the printer. It also makes sense to include the CMYK profile for those images as a free floating profile in the image folder for the job. And while this is a stop gap solution we will have to live with for years, we should be trying to figure out where the problems are with embedded profiles and get them fixed so that we don't need silly work arounds.

Chris Murphy

Color Remedies (TM)

www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor

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Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 15:31:09 EDT

From: Dan Margulis

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

Chris Murphy writes,

Wrong profiles attached? Do you have an example of this and how it's occurring?

Anybody using any of the "prepress defaults" for PS 6-7; almost anybody using a built-in digicam profile; anybody who's using Convert to Profile to generate a specific kind of black and doesn't realize that a profile is being embedded by default; most of those who have tried to custom-profile digicams; anybody using PS 5; anybody using PS7 or CS who owns a consumer digicam and hasn't figured out how to ignore EXIF profiles, etc., etc.

Plus, any time that the profile is arguably correct but yet the end user makes an informed decision to ignore it (and that happens with most profiled CMYK, and often with custom digicam profiles), then for workflow purposes the profile is wrong. Or, if the vendor is using a very slightly modified version of a common profile (say PS5 Adobe RGB vs. PS6 Adobe RGB, or Nikon-sRGB vs. sRGB) one would often like to eliminate the weird name, and for such a purpose the original profile is "wrong."

If you're in a workflow, as many of us are, where you receive 50 or more images from the same client, and you open the first three of them and up pops an sRGB profile which is clearly wrong, or a Nikon-sRGB profile that seems no different from normal sRGB, the profile mismatch warning box that pops up every time gets old real fast. So, if you don't wish to see it 50 more times, you have to turn the warning off and set RGB color management to ignore, and of course that's too bad if in addition to the 48 images tagged with the wrong profile they've snuck in two others from a different photographer who has tagged the images correctly with a different profile.

Obviously, what is needed is a way to tell Photoshop, "Temporarily stop bothering me with useless alerts about this particular tag, but please let me know if you encounter some other tag that doesn't agree with my settings."

The short term solution of not embedding profiles in CMYK images makes

sense until the root cause of problems associated with embedded

profiles in a given workflow are found and solved. It does not make

sense to blame metadata (embedded ICC profile in this case) for

problems, but rather improper action on this metadata. Metadata itself

does not change data, it merely describes it. If something wrong is

happening, it technically isn't fair to blame the metadata.

Agreed.

Dan Margulis

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Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 15:15:59 EDT

From: Dan Margulis

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

John Castronovo writes,

If I treat it as untagged and convert to RGB, doesn't the process assume

whatever default CMYK color space setting is chosen in PhotoShop's color

settings anyway?

Yes. Whatever the printer's default settings are are the that should be used in this particular scenario, not the embedded profile.

If you made your file for newsprint, and I convert to RGB without your file

being tagged, I'll get the wrong result.

This completely misapprehends the purpose of a proof, which is to predict the appearance of the final output, whether good, bad, or indifferent. Instead, you seem to feel that it is your job to make the proof look as pretty as possible. This job is to be output CMYK down the line without conversion. If you use the embedded newsprint profile for proofing, the proof will be vastly lighter than the final output, and the job will be a total loss.

You can now go back to calling those print shops "idiots" who have not learned enough about embedded CMYK profiles to use them to massacre jobs in the way you have just advocated; and those users "fools" who are unwilling to invite such catastrophes by putting such files into the hands of those who don't know how to use them correctly.

Dan Margulis

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Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 00:31:34 -0400

From:John Castronovo

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

From: Dan Margulis

This completely misapprehends the purpose of a proof, which is to predictthe

appearance of the final output, whether good, bad, or indifferent. Instead,

you seem to feel that it is your job to make the proof look as pretty as

possible. This job is to be output CMYK down the line without conversion.

If you use the embedded newsprint profile for proofing, the proof will be vastly lighter

than the final output, and the job will be a total loss.

Yes, now that I read the requirements of this test again, you are correct. In this case we're trying to see what's in these plates and not trying to go back to the original image. What I do every day is the latter, and the inclusion of a profile solves problems around here, not creates them. Putting the profile info in the image folder as Chris suggests is a welcome work around, but it would be better if it could travel more closely with the file where those who need it can get at it, and those who want to ignore it can.

You can now go back to calling those print shops "idiots" who have not

learned enough about embedded CMYK profiles . . .

Hold on there, Dan. I don't think I called people idiots who don't embed profiles. If I did, I didn't mean it that way. My anger was directed at those who need to ignore them and don't know how to do that. It's because of them that profiles can become a problem, so then files don't get tagged, which in turn makes my life more difficult.

john c.

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Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 13:31:55 -0600

From: Chris Murphy

Subject: Re: Re: ICC for CTF & CTP

On May 13, 2004, at 1:31 PM, Dan Margulis wrote:

Anybody using any of the "prepress defaults" for PS 6-7;

Why are they wrong?

almost anybody using

a built-in digicam profile;

Fair enough.

anybody who's using Convert to Profile to

generate a specific kind of black and doesn't realize that a profile is being

embedded by default;

Why is it the wrong profile?

most of those who have tried to custom-profile digicams;

Maybe.

anybody using PS 5;

That's pretty sketchy. Just because it's easy for the wrong profile to get embedded doesn't mean they're always wrong.

anybody using PS7 or CS who owns a consumer digicam and hasn't

figured out how to ignore EXIF profiles, etc., etc.

There are no EXIF profiles. It's an implied profile only used by things that support that EXIF tag. It doesn't cause profiles to get embedded at all.

Plus, any time that the profile is arguably correct but yet the end user

makes an informed decision to ignore it (and that happens with most profiled CMYK,

and often with custom digicam profiles), then for workflow purposes the

profile is wrong.

Using that logic, you could argue that embedded profiles could be at any moment so useless that there is no point. And that's not something I recall you ever saying. That there are clear workflow failures regarded embedded profiles notwithstanding, I don't think it's particularly useful to start calling embedded but ignored profiles "wrong". They still describe color appearance and bring meaning to otherwise ambiguous RGB or CMYK values, that's all they do. If someone doesn't want to go with that suggestion, they have the option to ignore at their own risk or benefit. The barrier to their usefulness is that they can be, superficially anyway, seemingly random in their risk/benefit ratio.

Or, if the vendor is using a very slightly modified version of a

common profile (say PS5 Adobe RGB vs. PS6 Adobe RGB, or Nikon-sRGB vs. sRGB)

one would often like to eliminate the weird name, and for such a purpose the

original profile is "wrong."

At least for RGB spaces, ACE will not convert the file if the source and destination are substantially the same. But this is a pain in the ass when getting bogus profile mismatch warnings.

Obviously, what is needed is a way to tell Photoshop, "Temporarily stop

bothering me with useless alerts about this particular tag, but please let me know

if you encounter some other tag that doesn't agree with my settings."

And a lawsuit to prevent companies from stealing the intellectual property of other companies, stripping copyright tags and then renaming them, which among other things sends them the bill for this additional development. This is something Adobe could certain do better, but the origin of the problem is not theirs.

Chris Murphy

Color Remedies (TM)

www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor

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Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 20:40:16 -0000

From: "colormatik"

Subject: ICC for CTP - does it really matter?