Digital Technology Group, Inc. Tampa Ft. Lauderdale Carolinas www.dtgweb.com Setting up Color Management in ImagePrint Setting up your color settings in ImagePrint correctly is vital to achieving the results you want for your color and B&W prints. This document is a short, concise set of instructions and an explanation of ImagePrint s color management and profile settings. Please visit http://www.dtgweb.com/store/support/color_byte/index.htm for an in-depth training presentation for a guide and tutorial for all of ImagePrint features and operations. In this document are a few screen captures of the windows you use to set up color management in ImagePrint. Following the screen captures are explanations of what each option controls and what we recommend be chosen. Before we get into the menus we want to lay some ground rules and give you a few explanations of ImagePrint s naming conventions for it s printer and media profiles. 1. For ImagePrint to be able to see or access profiles they need to be in the following folder: C:\Program Files\ImagePrint\Color on a PC or Applications\ImagePrint\Color on the Mac. So if you ve downloaded new ImagePrint profiles or created a custom monitor profile you need to copy them into this folder. 2. Read each profile very carefully as they are specific to ink-sets, papers, and printers. For example, for Epson Ultrachrome printers you may see the same paper profile with the letters mk or pk in them. The mk stands for Matte Black and the pk stands for Photo Black. So obviously choose the one that matches which black is in your machine. You will also see profiles with the word gray in them. These are profiles specifically for printing in Black & White or grayscale and allow you to print excellent black & white photos. 3. For each color paper profile ImagePrint has 4 different options: CWF, CWF2, Day, & Tung. These are color temperature differences and are meant to compensate for lighting differences under which the prints are viewed. In other words if you know the customer will be viewing the prints in an office fluorescent environment choose one of the CWF settings. If they are going to view them in a neutral daylight type environment choose Day. The abbreviations are as follows: CWF Cool White Fluorescent, CWF2 Cool White Fluorescent2 (less cool than the first), Day Neutral daylight, Tung Toungsten or very warm light. We recommend Day profiles for most applications. So lets now set up ImagePrint. First, to access ImagePrint s color management controls, in the program, go to Edit Color Management.
Figure 1 System Tab of the Color Management Window The system tab of the color management window controls the destination or output of your color. This includes your monitor, printer (and media/paper), and proofing device if applicable. System Printer Proofer Proofer This option is for setting and choosing your monitor profile. If you have a custom profile for your monitor (and you should not be doing photographic printing without a monitor calibrator) choose your custom monitor profile you created for your monitor. This will allow you to soft proof your images based on the paper profile you choose. This is for setting and choosing your printer (printer/paper/ink) profile. Set this to whatever your paper type is in your printer. Remember the letters mk in the profile are for Matte Black ink and the letters pk are for Photo Black ink. Also, if you are printing B&W images you will get better results if you pick one of the gray profiles. If you do select a gray profile you will notice that the Monochrome Tint box becomes active allowing you to alter the tint (warm or cool) of your prints. A setting of 50-50 is pure neutral. This really should say Proofer Profile. If you are printing photos and want the broadest possible color set this to none. If, however, you wanted your printer to mimic or match another printer you would choose that other printer s profile. This is mainly used in the commercial printing/proofing industry. This really should say Proofer Intent. This is the rendering intent used to map the color to the proofing profile. We recommend Perceptual if you are trying to proof photos on another printer. If you selected none in the above Proofer Profile drop-down than this option has no effect.
Figure 2 Bitmap Tab of the Color Management Window The Bitmap tab of the color management window controls the source profiles of your images. In this section you tell ImagePrint what color space the images you re opening are in, and if you want it to use embedded profiles. RGB CMYK Lab Source profile for all RGB images that you open in ImagePrint. Pick the RGB source profile or the color space that you know your images are in. You generally want to set this to whatever your working RGB space is set to in Photoshop. Or if you know the current image has a different color space like srgb (and is not embedded with that profile) choose it. Source profile for all CMYK images that you open in ImagePrint. Pick the CMYK source profile or the color space that you know your CMYK images are in. You generally want to set this to whatever your working CMYK space is set to in Photoshop. Or if you know the image has a different color space like 3M Matchprint (and is not embedded with that profile) choose it. You can t change the setting for Lab because files in Lab don t require source profiles. Embedded Controls how ImagePrint handles images that come in with embedded profiles. The options are Ignore, Prompt, and Apply. Ignore will ignore the embedded profile and use the RGB, CMYK, or Gray profile that you selected in this window as the source profile. Prompt will ask you if you want to use the embedded profile every time you open an image with an embedded profile. Apply will automatically use the embedded profile as the source profile overriding the other settings. We recommend the Apply setting. Gray Source profile for all grayscale images that you open in ImagePrint. Pick the gray source profile that you know your grayscale (B&W) images are in. You generally want to set this to whatever your working Gray space is set to in Photoshop (like Gray Gamma 2.2). Or if you know the image has a different profile like Gray Gamma 1.8, (and is not embedded with that profile) choose it. For the Rendering options to the right choose Perceptual for all (except lab). This intent is ideal for images or photos. For more information on rendering intents see the document Color Management Defined on the Support page of www.dtgweb.com
Figure 3 Vector Tab of the Color Management Window The Vector tab of the color management window controls the source profiles of your vector graphics in EPS or Postscript files from applications like Illustrator and QuarkXpress. In this section you tell ImagePrint what color space the graphic elements in your postscript files are in. This section is irrelevant if you do not have the Postscript version of ImagePrint or if you are only opening images or photos. RGB CMYK Source profile for all RGB vector graphics that you open in ImagePrint. Pick the RGB source profile or the color space that you know your graphics are in. You generally want to set this to whatever your working RGB space is set to in Illustrator or other illustration application. Or if you know the current page has graphics with a different color space like srgb, choose it. Source profile for all CMYK vector graphics that you open in ImagePrint. Pick the CMYK source profile or the color space that you know your graphics are in. You generally want to set this to whatever your working CMYK space is set to in Illustrator or other illustration application. Or if you know the current page has graphics with a different color space like 3M Matchprint, choose it. For the Rendering options to the right choose Relative Colorimetric for both RGB and CMYK options. This intent is ideal for vector graphics. For more information on rendering intents see the document Color Management Defined on the Support page of www.dtgweb.com Finally, now that you ve set up all of your color management settings you just need to make sure that when you print, you choose the appropriate ink set. This setting is available when you click print and then click on the Setup button on the Print dialog.
Figure 4 Setup option within the Print Dialog In the Setup option of the Print Dialog you just want to make sure you have the correct ink setting for the type of ink you have in your printer and per your printer profile you picked. The good news here is if you have version 5.5 or greater of ImagePrint, this setting is automatically set according to the paper profile you picked. Below is an explanation of each ink-set option. For Epson 7600/9600 Series Printers KCMYcm Pigment Printing color images using Ultrachrome w/ the Photo Black cartridge. KMCMYcm Pigment - Printing color images using Ultrachrome w/ the Matte Black cartridge. KCMYcm Dye Printing color images with the Dye inks installed. Photo-Dye printers only. K Pigment Printing images using Ultrachrome w/ just Photo Black ink (no color ink is used). K Matte Pigment - Printing images using Ultrachrome w/ just Matte Black ink (no color ink is used). Gray Pigment Printing black & white images with the Photo Black cartridge using all of the inks including color. A gray profile must have been chosen while using this ink choice. Gray Matte Pigment Printing black & white images with the Matte Black cartridge using all of the inks including color. A gray profile must have been chosen while using this ink choice. For Epson 10000/10600 Series Printers KCMYcm Dye Printing images with Dye inks installed. 10000 or 10600 PhotoDye. KCMYcm Pigment Printing images with Archival(CF) inks installed. 10000CF or 10600CF KCMYcmUC Photo Printing images with Ultrachome inks with the Photo Black cartridge. KCMYcmUC Matte - Printing images with Ultrachome inks with the Matte Black cartridge. Digital Technology Group - Tampa, FL - 813-889-0660 - www.dtgweb.com