Which rgb profile

Use the dropdown to select your desired color mode. For general purposes, the first two options are fine, but you may want to check with your printer beforehand to be sure of what they need. To change the color mode of your Illustrator file, select all objects in your document. You can change the color mode of your InDesign document in the export process.

In the Export Adobe PDF popup box, select Output on the left side and use the Destination dropdown menu in the Color section to choose your desired color mode. Knowing how the colors interact to define a pigment can give you greater control over how the final color looks, and therefore greater control over your final design.

This article was originally written by Peter Vukovic and published in It has been updated with new examples and information. Our newsletter is for everyone who loves design! Let us know if you're a freelance designer or not so we can share the most relevant content for you. By completing this form, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Designers, check out these contests so you can start building your career. Get a design. What is RGB? RGB and additive mixing A light source within a device creates any color you need by mixing red, green and blue and varying their intensity.

When to use RGB? What is CMYK? I thought of choosing "Best RGB", is it okay? For web, sRGB is the standard. Unfortunately, not all browsers acknowledge your embedded profile so you have to destructively convert the colors.

What should I do regarding color profile when designing for the web? Calibration and Photoshop Color Settings. If you have not been specifically told by the printer you're sending the photo to, which profile to use, then use sRGB - as anything else is quite likely to generate incorrect results.

A modified form of it is used by television and video. It's the default used by digital cameras, too. A few print shops may support Adobe RGB or even other spaces, but if they do, they'll make it clear and they will know what they are talking about, because colour management needs specific knowledge.

It also becomes difficult to preview and edit a file as soon as you use a colour profile other than sRGB because even in the event you have a colour-managed editor and you've configured it correctly, it will still probably distort it down to sRGB in order to display correctly on your graphics card and monitor.

Thus there is a very high temptation to use a wider colour space such as Adobe RGB or something else. Unfortunately, correctly previewing and editing in such a colour space is just that much more difficult. Because they rely on many data points, they are much larger. Device-dependent and device-independent color spaces Some color profiles are purely theoretical and describe a way to turn color into numbers. Commonly used color spaces Most photographers will have to deal with a handful of different color spaces in their work.

Working spaces Working color spaces are color models that are well suited to image editing tasks such as color and tone adjustments. Adobe RGB - As the name implies, this color space was created by Adobe in the late 90s, when Photoshop implemented full color management. Although Adobe never intended this color space to be the universal standard, it is widely supported.

ProPhoto RGB - This color space was designed as a universal standard for high-bit image editing, and includes all the colors that the human eye can see.

Because the space is so wide, it's not appropriate for 8-bit images. ProPhoto RGB is not always the best choice for a working space. Some people have found interesting ways to use CIELAB space to manipulate images, since the luminance is totally separate from the color information.

Images that are in CIELAB space also don't have full support in Photoshop for adjustment layers and other non-destructive imaging tools. Device-dependent spaces Photographers will most commonly run into device-dependent color spaces when profiling monitors, desktop printers or sending images out for CMYK printing.

Monitor RGB - Modern monitors include a factory-created profile that is loaded into the monitor's firmware and is communicated to your computer via the monitor connection cable. If you want your monitor to do the best possible job reproducing your images, you should create a custom profile for it. Desktop printer profile - Your printer comes with profiles in the driver software. You can create a custom profile for your printer if you want to maximize its color fidelity.

Delivery spaces When images are sent from one person to another, it can be appropriate to consider converting the working space. This makes sRGB a good choice to send to unknown users. At the moment, sRGB is the only appropriate choice for images uploaded to the web since most web browsers don't support any color management.

Additionally, sRGB is a very good choice for images sent to minilabs, especially if there is no custom profile available. Because sRGB is not a wide color space, it's not appropriate as a working space. Adobe RGB - This is probably the most often-requested color space for delivery, if a color space is specified. It offers a good gamut and very wide support. Figure 4 Here we see two examples of an image. The left-hand image has been converted to sRGB, and should look reasonably accurate to viewers who have profiled their monitors.

The right-hand image is in Adobe RGB, and will look dark and muted to most viewers, even if they have a profiled monitor, since most web browsers do not make use of the embedded profile. If the images look the same, your browser and operating system are correctly color managing the page. You will find much more information here: Read more in Commercial Printing. Setting up Photoshop color settings In order to get Photoshop to color manage optimally, you'll want to check a few options that are part of the Color Settings dialog available in the Edit menu.

Figure 5 Make sure to set Photoshop's color settings to warn you whenever a profile is missing. Figure 6 The Load button in Photoshop's Color Settings dialog lets you import a preset configuration.

Figure 7 This video shows you how to assign a profile as you open a file in Adobe Camera Raw. Converting between color profiles There are a number of times when you will want to convert a file from one color space to another.

For most users, the default Adobe ACE engine fulfills all conversion needs. To view a description of an engine or intent option, select the option and then position the pointer over the option name. Intent Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign Specifies the rendering intent used to translate one color space to another. Differences between rendering intents are apparent only when you print a document or convert it to a different working space.

Use Black Point Compensation Ensures that the shadow detail in the image is preserved by simulating the full dynamic range of the output device.

Select this option if you plan to use black point compensation when printing which is recommended in most situations. When the Use Dither option is selected, Photoshop mixes colors in the destination color space to simulate a missing color that existed in the source space. Although dithering helps to reduce the blocky or banded appearance of an image, it may also result in larger file sizes when images are compressed for web use.

Compensate For Scene-Rendered Profiles Photoshop Compares video contrast when converting from scene to output profiles. This option reflects default color management in After Effects. Desaturate Monitor Colors By Determines whether to desaturate colors by the specified amount when displayed on the monitor. When selected, this option can aid in visualizing the full range of color spaces with gamuts larger than that of the monitor. However, this causes a mismatch between the monitor display and the output.

When the option is deselected, distinct colors in the image may display as a single color. When the option is selected, RGB colors are blended in the color space corresponding to the specified gamma. A gamma of 1. Legal Notices Online Privacy Policy. Buy now. Color settings Search. Make it. Customize color settings. To save color settings as a preset, click Save in the Color Settings dialog box.

To ensure that the application displays the setting name in the Color Settings dialog box, save the file in the default location. If you save the file to a different location, you must load the file before you can select the setting.