Adobe Photoshop CS5 One-on-One

Color Management —much like printing in general—is a very

context-sensitive proposition, so it’s difficult for me, not know-

ing what make and model printer you’re using, to tell you the

best settings for your printer. Given that, I’m going to show

you a couple of options, and let you decide for yourself which

works better.

11. Confirm the source and method options. To print the colors
    in an image as accurately as possible, you must identify the
    source space—the color space used by the image itself—and
    the method by which Photoshop translates the colors to the
    destination space used by the printer.
    
    
    • Select the radio button labeled Document (Profile: Adobe
      RGB (1998)). This source space is the variety of RGB em-
      ployed by the image file The Joy of Color.psd.
    
    
    • Start with the Color Handling option set to Printer Man-
      ages Colors. This setting conveys the source space and
      leaves the printer software in charge of the color conver-
      sion process. You’ll be reminded to enable your printer’s
      color management settings. To find this option, you’ll have
      to poke around in the Print Settings options, which vary
      by printer and operating system.
    
    
    • Rendering Intent specifies how you want Photoshop to
      deal with out-of-gamut colors (i.e., the colors in your digi-
      tal image that aren’t reproducible by your printer). Set the
      Rendering Intent option to Relative Colormetric, which
      preserves the widest range of colors by shifting each of
      the possible millions of colors in your image to the closest
      available color in the destination color space.
    
    
    
    

PeaRl Of WISDOm

The only other option I’d ever recommend for the Rendering Intent setting
is Perceptual. It maintains the smoothest transitions when converting colors
because it tries to preserve the perceptual relationship (vis-a-vis the human
eye) between colors. Perceptual is the best solution for photographic
images. But since we have those two panels of colored Chiclet-like swatches
in this image, Relative Colorimetric is preferable in this case.

Hover over a Color Management option to see an explanation

of the active setting in the Description area in the bottom-right

corner of the dialog box. Figure 12-8 shows the settings as they

should appear at this point.

Figure 12-8.

Printing to an Inkjet Printer 427