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Use Photoshop to set the bubble jet printer colors.
 Photoshop's
Color Settings select the color environment in use. More precisely, it sets what color
space you are using, and how to process images that have designated color spaces associated with them. All
of which raises the question, "What is color space?"
In most cases, the same graphic on two different monitors shows up in noticeably different colors. The same is true
of scanners and printers as well. There is no guarantee that colors in scanned images will have their colors reproduced exactly
on the monitor, or that the printed colors will look the same as when they were scanned. The reason
is that each device has a different color space.
Hence, the necessity for setting a standard color space to support devices with different color spaces, which is the
idea behind Photoshop's Workspace. We use sRGB as the color space for optimal printing on bubble jet printers.
Another crucial factor is something called Color Management Policy, which refers to attaching
ICC Profiles to images taken with a digital camera or saved in Photoshop. This serves as a sort of
certificate of identity for a given graphic, indicating that it was made using a specific color space. If you open the file
without paying attention to its profile, it will not appear with the right colors. The setting that displays messages that
avoid this problem is called the color management policy.
In this section, we will examine each aspect of color settings, focusing on Workspace and Color Management Policy.
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Choose [Color Settings] from the [Edit] menu. The primary usage states are set
in [Settings]. For demonstration purposes, we will reconfigure each setting after choosing [U.S Prepress
Defaults]:
Pop-ups with simple explanations for each item in the color settings window
will appear if you move the mouse cursor over a given item.
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Designate the ICC Profile that will
define the color space in [Workspace]. The ICC Profile saved on the Monitor Calibration page
is for that monitor. Now we will designate a profile for the workspace. The choices include RGB, CMYK,
grayscale, and spot color. RGB should be sufficient if your objective is printing
on a bubble jet printer.
What this means is that sRGB, or sRGB IEC61966-2.1, as shown onscreen, is suited for importing
digital images and printing them on a bubble jet printer. The reason is that sRGB, a standard color space for digital
hardware, is used on monitors as well.
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Color Management Policy means choosing whether to use
or ignore ICC Profiles attached to (embedded in) graphics. More specifically, suppose
that you have your Photoshop RGB workspace set to sRGB.
If an image you are opening, however, has an embedded Adobe RGB ICC Profile, as a rule, you should use
that profile. Thus, the color management policy setting is usually set to preserve
embedded profiles.
It is best to [check all the checkboxes in this dialog window [Profile Does Not Match] and [No Embedded Profile]. Doing
so will generate an alert when graphics are opened or pasted to the effect that profiles do not match. Refer to the following
section on Color Management for details.
The figure below shows typical color management policy
settings. As a rule, set RGB, CMYK, and grayscale for [Preserve Embedded Profiles], and check all the
checkboxes in this dialog window for [Profile Does Not Match] and [No Embedded Profile].
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Now, lets examine the other settings. Conversion
Options refers to converting color spaces.
For example, you would use this setting to designate converting images with sRGB color spaces into Adobe RGB color
spaces, or RGB images into CMYK images. Color Matching Modules are programs that perform the color
conversions, with Matching Methods being the protocols used to make the conversion.
Feel free to leave these at their default settings. Also, feel free to leave the [Use Black Point Retouching] and [Dithering
(8-bit/Channel Images)] checkboxes checked as well.
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Advanced Controls section appears if the Detailed Settings Mode checkbox in the upper part of the [Color
Settings] dialog window is checked. Simply put, [Display Colors Outside of Monitor Color Space (Reduce
Saturation)] lowers saturation so as to enable a pseudo-representation of colors that the monitor cannot
properly display, because monitors cannot display all colors. Conversely, [Retouch Gamma on RGB Color
Blended Portions] designates how to retouch and display overlapping portions of layered images.
These, too, can be left in their default settings. Changing them will change the monitor display and printer output,
so be careful of any changes you make here.
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