Color-managing documents when printing

Letting the printer determine colors when printing Letting the application determine colors when printing Obtaining custom profiles for desktop printers

Color-managing PDFs for printing

Printing with color management

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Color management options for printing let you specify how you want Adobe applications to handle the outgoing image data so the printer will print colors consistent with what you see on your monitor. Your options for printing color-managed documents depend on the Adobe application you use, as well as the output device you select. In general, you have the following choices for handling colors during printing:

Let the printer determine colors.

Let the application determine colors.

(InDesign) Do not use color management. In this workflow, no color conversion occurs. You may also need to turn off color management in your printer driver. This method is useful primarily for printing test targets or generating custom profiles.

Letting the printer determine colors when printing

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In this workflow, the application does the minimum color conversion required to get the document into a color space that the printer supports. For example, when printing CMYK or duotone images to a desktop inkjet, the application converts to RGB or Lab color, depending upon printer support.

This method is especially convenient when printing to inkjet photo printers, because each combination of paper type, printing resolution, and additional printing parameters (such as high-speed printing) requires a different profile. Most new inkjet photo printers come with fairly accurate profiles built into the driver, so letting the printer select the right profile saves time and alleviates mistakes. This method is also recommended if you are not familiar with color management.

If you choose this method, it is very important that you set up printing options and turn on color management in your printer driver. Search Help for additional instructions.

If you select a PostScript printer, you can take advantage of PostScript color management. PostScript color management makes it possible to perform color composite output or color separations at the raster image processor (RIP)—a process called in-RIP separations—so that a program need only specify parameters for separation and let the device calculate the final color values. PostScript color-managed output workflows require an output device that supports PostScript color management using PostScript Level 2 version 2017 or later, or PostScript Lanuage Level 3.

Letting the application determine colors when printing

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In this workflow, the application does all the color conversion, generating color data specific to one output device. The application uses the assigned color profiles to convert colors to the output device’s gamut, and sends the resulting values to the output device. The accuracy of this method depends on the accuracy of the printer profile you select. Use this workflow when you have custom ICC profiles for each specific printer, ink, and paper combination.

If you choose this option, it is very important that you disable color management in your printer driver. Letting the application and the printer driver simultaneously manage colors during printing results in unpredictable color. Search Help for additional instructions.

Obtaining custom profiles for desktop printers

If the output profiles that come with your printer don’t produce satisfactory results, you obtain custom profiles in the following ways: Purchase a profile for your type of printer and paper. This is usually the easiest and least expensive method.

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Purchase a profile for your specific printer and paper. This method involves printing a profiling target on your printer and paper, and providing that target to a company that will create a specific profile. This is more expensive than purchasing a standard profile, but can provide better results because it compensates for any manufacturing variations in printers.

Create your own profile using a scanner-based system. This method involves using profile-creation software and your own flatbed scanner to scan the profiling target. It can provide excellent results for matte surface papers, but not glossy papers. (Glossy papers tend to have

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fluorescent brighteners in them that look different to a scanner than they do in room light.)

Create your own profile using a hardware profile-creation tool. This method is expensive but can provide the best results. A good hardware tool can create an accurate profile even with glossy papers.

Tweak a profile created using one of the previous methods with profile-editing software. This software can be complex to use, but it lets you correct problems with a profile or simply adjust a profile to produce results more to your taste.

Color-managing PDFs for printing

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When you create Adobe PDFs for commercial printing, you can specify how color information is represented. The easiest way to do this is using a PDF/X standard; however, you can also specify color-handling options manually in the Output section of the PDF dialog box. For more information about PDF/X and how to create PDFs, search Help.

In general, you have the following choices for handling colors when creating PDFs:

(PDF/X-3) Does not convert colors. Use this method when creating a document that will be printed or displayed on various or unknown devices. When you select a PDF/X-3 standard, color profiles are automatically embedded in the PDF.

(PDF/X-1a) Converts all colors to the destination CMYK color space. Use this method if you want to create a press-ready file that does not require any further color conversions. When you select a PDF/X-1a standard, no profiles are embedded in the PDF.

(Illustrator and InDesign) Converts colors that have embedded profiles to the destination color space, but preserves the numbers for those colors without embedded profiles. You can manually select this option in the Output section of the PDF dialog box. Use this method if the document contains CMYK images that aren’t color-managed and you want to make sure that the color numbers are preserved.

Note: All spot color information is preserved during color conversion; only the process color equivalents convert to the designated color space.