Re: Inadequate ColorSync support.
Re: Inadequate ColorSync support.
- Subject: Re: Inadequate ColorSync support.
- From: John Fieber <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 19:58:53 -0500
On Nov 18, 2003, at 4:22 PM, Pete Carter wrote:
There is one exception and that is printing with
preview from Photoshop with no colour adjustment in the printer driver.
My research on the issues suggests that even this is a maybe. As of
Jaguar at least, there is apparently no way to REALLY turn of colorsync
in the print driver because the colorsync happens in the pdf to raster
(and output profile registered by the printer) conversion which is
before the driver gets any of the data. The best you can do is have
the print driver and the application agree on the profile to use so
that colorsync doesn't actually do anything. This information comes
from @apple.com sources on the email@hidden mailing list.
Somewhere else (I forget exactly where) I read that even offering a "no
color adjustment" option in the driver user interface is (officially?)
discouraged since it only actually has that effect if the application
cooperates in the plan to simulate no color management. Some
applications just won't cooperate. The following rambling assumes the
above behaviors to reflect reality.
For example of an application that won't cooperate with "no color
adjustment", drop two versions of an image into TextEdit. Have each
encoded with a different profile. The PDF that gets injected into the
printing system has those two images with untouched raster data, each
tagged with the original profile. Obviously, at MOST only one of these
could possibly make it through to paper with "no color adjustment" with
the way things work now. I'd guess that we can take this as a model of
how an application ought to behave in Apple's Grand ColorSync
Integration Vision. I think there are a variety of sound arguments
that this a reasonable approach that wants accurate color with minimum
fuss--all the application has to do is maintain the association of the
data and profile and everything Just Works. If you use high level APIs
for image display, it is supposedly more or less automatic.
Another case: Photoshop. Near as I can tell, EVERYTHING that photoshop
puts into the printing system is tagged with the Generic RGB Profile,
regardless of the actual profile. Think about it for a moment and you
will realize that the ONLY way photoshop is going to be able to
correctly print an image that isn't already using the Generic RGB
Profile is to have photoshop convert to the output space and hope that
the printer registers "Generic RGB Profile" as the printer profile when
you select "no color adjustment". This certainly explains why my
"Same as source" printouts never looked right. An Adobe RGB file
printed with "Same as source" will have Adobe RGB data that the print
system will interpret as Generic RGB. (I'd really like to see if
Photoshop CS behaves differently.)
Most third party applications I've looked at behave more or less like
Photoshop...generating Generic RGB Profile tagged data regardless of
what the proper tag is. The result is more or less guaranteed bad
color.
Between these two examples, I find that TextEdit gives me a more
accurate print on my new Canon i960 than Photoshop does even if I use
Apple's CMM, so there is still some secret sauce in the driver at work.
Yesterday I discovered that OmniGraffle behaves like TextEdit with
respect to ICC tagged images.
The
really worrying thing is that nobody wants to hold their head up with a
definitive answer why.
It looks to ME, a lowly amateur photographer trying to get a good
print, like Apple put together a Grand ColorSync Integration Vision but
didn't have sufficient participation of folks making printers, writing
drivers, writing applications that print, or people who print things.
It is painfully obvious that neither drivers, nor most third party
applications fit Apple's vision of how things should work.
It may be Apple's fault for not being inclusive enough in formulation
of the printing architecture, and Apple's fault for not highlighting
how color management in printing is DIFFERENT NOW and evangelizing
their Grand ColorSync Integration Vision to developers.
It may be third party's fault for not paying attention to the fact that
the color is all messed up in their printouts and investigating why.
-john
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