Color Management

This command lets you view and modify the various Picture Window settings related to color management. When you change any of the settings that affect the way images are displayed such as the monitor or proofing profile, the changes are reflected immediately in any image windows open in the workspace. If you exit by clicking Cancel, the settings in effect at the time you invoked the Color Management command are restored. If you wish, you can open additional files while the command is active.

At any time you can save the current color management settings in a file by clicking the Save As... button at the top of the dialog box. A saved file can later be restored using the Load... button.

Color Management

Enabled -- This enables color management.

Disabled -- This disables color management. When disabled, all the other color management settings are ignored and no color management is performed. If color management is disabled, some features such as printing with a custom profile will be unavailable.

RGB/Gray Working Color Space

There are two sets of controls – one for color images and one for black and white images. Each type of image has different profiles. Gray profiles are mostly just a brightness curve that is applied to the image values while color profiles have a lot of additional information about the color characteristics of the device or color space they define.

This control lets you specify what color space you want to work in. This setting defines the color space to which you want to convert images when they are opened if you elect to convert them (see On Profile Mismatch below).

RGB/Gray Assumed File Profile

This control lets you specify what color space you want to assign to color image files that have no embedded profile when they are opened.

On Profile Mismatch

This control lets you specify how color space conversion is handled when an image file is opened. There is also a Batch version of this setting which overrides the regular setting if a batch operation is in progress. Asking about profile mismatches in batch mode prevents it from running long jobs unattended. In any case, the file is never altered.

Ask on Mismatch -- This displays the Confirm Profile Conversion dialog box when a mismatch is detected. This lets you choose whether or not to convert to the working color space if the image file has an embedded profile different from the working color space.

Don’t Convert -- This causes Picture Window to open the file without converting the image to the working color space. The image is assigned the color space embedded in the file or, if no color space was embedded, in the assumed color space.

Convert -- This causes Picture Window to open the image, first assigning it the assumed profile if there is no embedded profile, and then converting it to the working color space, if necessary.

On Startup

This gives you the option to set the monitor profile explicitly in this dialog or use the system monitor settings. System monitor settings are shown in the Windows Display Control Panel - Advanced Settings - Color Management tab. You may want to use the system settings if you have monitor calibration software which automatically updates the settings in Windows.

Monitor Profile

This control lets you specify the profile that characterizes your monitor. The monitor profile setting does not incorporate monitor calibration, it simply tells the color management system what standard your monitor is calibrated to (if any). To clear this setting, select None.

Monitor Rendering Intent

This control lets you specify how you want colors translated to the monitor color space.

Maintain Full Gamut

          This tells the color management engine to expand or contract the full image gamut to cover the full monitor gamut. This is the normal setting for photographic images.

Preserve Saturation

          This tells the color management engine to give priority to matching saturation when searching for the monitor colors that best match the corresponding image colors. This setting is intended for use with business graphics such as charts.

Preserve Identical Colors

          This tells the color management engine to match monitor colors as accurately as possible to the corresponding image colors. This setting is useful when an absolute match is required as in printing an image of a sweater in a catalog that needs to be as close as possible to the color of the actual sweater.

Preserve Identical Colors and White Point

          This tells the color management engine to match monitor colors as accurately as possible to the corresponding image colors while keeping white unchanged.

Preserve Identical Colors and Black Point          

          This tells the color management engine to match monitor colors as accurately as possible to the corresponding image colors while keeping black unchanged.

Color Manage Thumbnails

If Color Manage Thumbnails is set to Yes, then if color management is enabled, image browser thumbnails are converted to the monitor color space before being displayed. If Color Manage Thumbnails is set to No, conversion to the monitor color space is bypassed. Turning off color management of thumbnails speeds up the image browser display significantly but the colors in the thumbnails may not match those in the main display area.

Proofing Profile

This control lets you specify a color profile for a proofing device (normally a printer). This lets you preview on the screen how an image will look when output to the proofing device. This is done by translating the image first to the proofing device color space and then to the monitor color space. To clear this setting, select None.

This setting is designed to let you preview how an image will look on an output device like a printing press whose color gamut is significantly smaller than that of your monitor. Using a proofing profile with a color inkjet or other printer that reproduces a full range of colors will not provide useful feedback.

For proofing to be in effect, not only must a proofing profile be selected, but proofing must also be enabled. Proofing is enabled or disabled via the proofing button just to the right of the main tool bar.

This button is only displayed when a proofing profile has been specified and color management is enabled. It provides a quick way to check proofing and then turn it off without have to go back to the Color Management dialog box. It is not recommended to leave proofing enabled during routine editing as this can introduce artifacts into the display and also slows Picture Window down significantly.

Proofing Rendering Intent

This control lets you specify how you want colors translated to the proofing device color space. See Monitor Rendering Intent above for details.

Gamut Alarm and Color

You have the option of turning the gamut alarm feature on or off and selecting the gamut alarm color. This feature is only in effect when you are using a proofing profile; it replaces all colors in all image windows that lie outside the selecting proofing printer gamut with the gamut alarm color

Monitor Curves on Startup

These controls let you specify a set of monitor curves to be loaded and optionally enabled on startup. Monitor and Printer Curves are created using the File/Monitor/Printer Curves command as described in a separate topic. Monitor curves are enabled or disabled via the monitor curves button on the main tool bar.

Issues for Scripts

When you open image files or paste images from the clipboard, they are optionally modified by being converted to the assumed color space or working color space. If you want to get exactly the same results every time you run a script, you need to pay attention to the following color management settings that can affect images:

Color Management -- disabling color management suppresses all profile conversion

Assumed Profiles -- changing the assumed profiles can alter the way images without profiles are converted to the working color space.

Working Color Space Profiles -- changing the working color space profiles can alter the way images are converted

On Profile Mismatch -- changing this setting can change the way images are converted. Also, if you select Ask on Mismatch, the script will stop and ask when it loads each mismatched file.

To alert you to these potential problems, a copy of the above color management settings is saved at the beginning of every script. When the script is run, if any of the settings has changed, a warning is issued.