Digital BW, The Print

What little I know about colorsync lies in the area I use it... I've never
built profiles. But from what I gather in the pdf you posted they are trying
to get you to print their untagged rgb target file thru photoshop and the
espon driver without interference.

What I don't understand is why they would want you to set your RGB color
settings to your monitor space. If you are printing their untagged file (I'm
assuming it's untagged as they want this to be totally *un* color managed)
then when you open their target file and send it to the printer it will be
sent without a tag, with no profile. So are they asking you to convert their
target file to your monitor work space when you open it..?  Sorry, I do not
get that.

You would not want your monitor profile to be your work space for the simple
reason that it is too small. If your monitor is calibrated (as your's is)
then any space you choose as your work space (Adobe RGB or Colormatch RGB
which you prefer) will be as close as possible to WYSIWYG thru photoshop's
color management views.  There is no need to use your monitor space as your
work space to achieve this.

The work space is where your file lies, you would not want to squish your
file into a tiny gamut like your monitor space, you want to keep it as large
as possible until print time, then decide what printer is to receive the
file and adjust accordingly. That is why some people prefer to stay in the
lab space as long as possible.

Check out a color reference chart to see the differences in the work
spaces... Read thru Apples excellent colorsync articles, they are very well
written, unlike the crap I'm trying to write above!   ;-)

Todd hit it on the head with the reasoning behind adopting colorsync in the
first place. It makes sense if it is applied correctly... Chubby Boy Press
or Miss Colorado Curves or whatever are fine in a closed environment but
that is not the way we work now.

Carolyn


> 
> This question is going to show how little I actually understand
> ColorSync, even after all this time. Maybe Carolyn can set me
> straight.
> 
> I just had a new custom profile done with Gen4 and ESFA. This
> is the procedure that I followed before printing all the color chips:
> 
> 1. Printed Dan Culbertson's BlackRamp to determine best
> MediaType. (I chose "Photo Paper").
> 2. Set up Photoshop ColorSettings according to ProfileCity's
> instructional PDF.
> 3. Then, output the chips for profiling, as normal.
> 
> But in #2, the ProfileCity part, the PDF instructs you to set your
> RGB Working Space to your monitor profile. In my case, after
> running Optical and calibrating my Pressview, the file is called
> "Monitor RGB - Radius 21SR Profile". You're also to set all of
> your Color Management Policies to "Off".
> 
> What is the real-world difference between setting your RGB
> Working Space to your Monitor Profile, rather than, say,
> Adobe98? After I think about it for a while, I'd think that I'd
> ALWAYS want my RGB working space as my monitor profile,
> because I work "from my eyes", as in I judge color mostly from
> the monitor representation, rather than by the Info Pallette.
> 
> Maybe I'm making this all too hard, but I'll be darn if I can really
> "get" ColorSync. If someone explains it to me, I'll shake my head,
> and say Yes, but I couldnt' really explain it to a third person.
> (Don't tell anybody).
> 
> Any simple-English answers very much appreciated.
> 
> -Mark Tucker, Dunce
> 
> PS. The ProfileCity PDF is here for download:
> http://marktucker.com/epson/profilecity.pdf