76
INSTRUCTOR
NO
TES
Lesson 14: Producing
and
P
rin
ting
C
onsisten
t
C
olor
Lesson 14 walks students through a basic color workflow, including soft-proofing
an
image and printing se
para
tions
.
Goals
for this lesson
Commercial printers have widely varying
requirements
for color
managemen
t
,
depending on what equipment they have and how they have designed their
pr
o
duc
–
tion workflow. Students should
understand
the
importance
of discussing color
w
it
h
the printing company to
understand
the
appropriate
settings to use for the job,
and
how to hand off the job c
or
r
ec
t
ly.
I
t
s
important
for students to
understand
the difference between color
correction
and color management. Color correction fixes bad-looking color. Color
manag
e
–
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CLASSROOM IN A BOOK (2022 RELEASE)
77
Reproducing
colors
Because the
RGB
gamut is much larger than the
CMYK
gamut, some assume that all
CMYK colors fit within
RGB.
However, this is not true because the gamuts are
d
i
f
–
ferent shapes that do not overlap perfectly. You may want to have students exami
ne
the color gamut figure and point out the small areas of CMYK that are outside
t
he
RGB gamut. Those CMYK colors cannot be
reproduced
on an RGB
d
i
spla
y.
C
onv
er
ting
an image
to
CMYK
You might make the following points about converting to CMYK:
The way Photoshop converts to CMYK depends on the CMYK Working
S
p
ace
se
t
in the Color Settings dialog box. (Choose Edit > Color Settings to open
it
.)
F
or
example, if the Settings default chosen at the top of the Color Settings
d
i
alo
g
box is U.S. Prepress Defaults, the CMYK Working Space is U.S. Web
Co
a
t
e
d
(S
WOP).
The appearance of an image after converting to CMYK is often
d
i
sa
pp
oi
n
ti
ng
.
Overall saturation is usually lower and some colors may shift. Reassure
studen
t
s
The Byte Order setting in the TIFF Options dialog box
i
sn
t
usually c
r
itic
al
because most professional graphics programs (such as Adobe products)
r
e
ad
both Mac and IBM PC byte
or
ders
.
Specifying
color
managemen
t
settings
The Color Settings dialog box can be intimidating, especially for beginners. You
might mention that the Color Settings dialog box is convenient because you can se
t
it once and leave it alone, unless there is a major change in your workflow.
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INSTRUCTOR
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I
t
s also
important
to
understand
that Color Settings options
don
t
necessarily
aff
ec
t
every document. Color Settings options are primarily default settings for when a
document does not already have an embedded color profile, or when a
do
c
umen
t
s
embedded color profile
do
e
sn
t
match the working space. Today, many images c
ar
r
y
embedded
pr
ofile
s
;
by default Photoshop simply uses the embedded profile s c
olor
space. In that case the working space specified in Color Settings
i
sn
t
u
sed.
Proofing
an image
The Missing Profile and Embedded Profile Mismatch dialog boxes can be very c
on
–
fusing. When a student sees one of these messages, they can do one of two
t
hing
s
:
Leave the document as it is. This means choosing either to use the
emb
e
dded
profile (if it exists) or to leave the document without a profile (if it
do
e
sn
t
e
x
i
st).
When a profile mismatch occurs, a student can also select Discard The Em
b
e
dded
Color Profile (D
on
t
Color Manage). That means that Photoshop will neither c
hang
e
the image s color values nor will it embed a profile that records the current view-
ing
environment.
Therefore, the image may not look right on the screen even if
it
s
colors are actually correct. This is valuable if a CMYK image is already tuned for
t
he
press any changes would be
de
tr
i
men
t
al.
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CLASSROOM IN A BOOK (2022 RELEASE)
79
Identifying out-of-gamut colors
For the Gamut Warning preference,
it
s best to choose a display color that is c
le
ar
ly
out of gamut so that it c
an
t
be confused with any real colors in the image. A
g
oo
d
way to do this is to specify a bright color at maximum sa
t
ura
tion.
Consider pointing out that just because a color is out of gamut
do
e
sn
t
mean it
must
be fixed. The
out-of-gamut
colors that need
adjustment
the most are those
wher
e
color detail is visibly lost as different color levels outside the gamut get merged
i
n
t
o
one when they hit the limit of the gamut. But areas marked out of gamut may
not
Sharing
your work on Adobe
P
or
tf
olio
This Extra Credit section can be a starting point for a class discussion on ways
t
o
share a cohesive body of creative work online. Discuss the advantages and
d
i
sadv
an
–
tages of Adobe Portfolio compared to other services, such as the other Adobe
onl
i
ne
sharing services Behance or Lightroom in a web browser, or non-Adobe website s
er
–
vices such as WordPress, Flickr, Smugmug, Squarespace, and Zenfolio. For e
xam
ple,
while Adobe Portfolio
concentrates
on showing a small selection of your best
wor
k
,
other services may focus on being a interactive design community such as
B
e
hanc
e,
while others provide advanced features such as more
customization
of the web
sit
e
design or ways to sell your work directly from the we
bsit
e.
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INSTRUCTOR
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Questions
The following questions are not in the
studen
t
s Classroom in a Book.
1 What is a working space?
2 Which working spaces should you select in the Color Settings dialog box?
3 How can you preview how an image will appear in final
out
put?
4 How can you identify
out-of-gamut
colors?
Answers
1 A working space is the color gamut within which Photoshop will adjust
an