About InDesign's "Save as PDF" color management settings
About InDesign's "Save as PDF" color management settings
- Subject: About InDesign's "Save as PDF" color management settings
- From: Marco Ugolini <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:36:15 -0800
- Thread-topic: About InDesign's "Save as PDF" color management settings
Can anyone please make any sense of some of these descriptions that appear
in InDesign's help file regarding the color management policies of its "Save
as PDF" procedure?
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Include All Profiles
Creates a color-managed document. If the application or output device that
uses the Adobe PDF file needs to translate colors into another color space,
it uses the embedded color space in the profile. Before you select this
option, turn on color management and set up profile information.
Include Tagged Source Profiles
Leaves device-dependent colors unchanged and preserves device-independent
colors as the nearest possible equivalent in PDF. This is a useful option
for print shops that have calibrated all their devices, used that
information to specify color in the file, and are only outputting to those
devices.
Include All RGB And Tagged Source CMYK Profiles
Includes any profiles for tagged RGB objects and tagged CMYK objects, such
as placed objects with embedded profiles. This option also includes the
Document RGB profile for untagged RGB objects.
Include Destination Profile
Assigns the destination profile to all objects. If Convert To Destination
(Preserve Color Numbers) is selected, untagged objects in the same color
space are assigned the destination profile so that color numbers don¹t
change.
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To me the distinctions between "Include All Profiles", "Include Tagged
Source Profiles" and "Include All RGB And Tagged Source CMYK Profiles" seem
to be described very poorly.
For example, what does it mean to say, under "Include Tagged Source
Profiles", that a certain setting "leaves device-dependent colors unchanged
and preserves device-independent colors as the nearest possible equivalent
in PDF"? As far as I know, *all* profiles, except Lab, are device-dependent:
they all describe color as it appears in one specific device under specific
conditions! And what is "the nearest possible equivalent in PDF" anyway?
Also, isn't the difference between "Include All Profiles" and "Include All
RGB And Tagged Source CMYK Profiles" just that the latter tags all untagged
RGB objects with the document's RGB profile? If so, it's very poorly
written.
Furthermore, I see it as supremely incorrect, under "Include Destination
Profile", to find the expression "Convert To Destination" used to indicate
the option of *assigning* the destination profile "so that color numbers
don¹t change". But in that case "Convert To Destination" cannot be right,
because if you *convert*, you change the numbers and keep the appearance
(save for out-of-gamut colors); whereas if you *assign*, you keep the
numbers unchanged while changing the appearance -- period.
Such lack of attention to correct terminology fosters the already widespread
confusion existing among many users between *assigning a profile* and
*converting to a profile* -- two operations with very different results,
between which not only does this paragraph make no clear distinction, but
actually positively treats as equivalent.
Any comments?
Marco Ugolini
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