Color space at print time

[Carl Harsch]

Some basic assumptions. I generally edit in a working color space for Adobe Photoshop of ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB, printer is an Epson R1800, Photoshop is set to control color and ICM on printer is OFF, custom color profiles are used for paper/printer combination.

Should one convert the image color space to the printer color profile prior to printing or does the Adobe engine do that automatically when the correct color profile is entered in the print menu?

If manual converting to the printer profile shouldn't be done, should the image be converted from the ProPhotoRGB to a narrower color space, such as adobeRGB or sRGB or does the Photoshop print engine make that conversion a moot point?

Thanks in advance.

[skid00skid00]

Some basic assumptions. I generally edit in a working color space for Adobe Photoshop of ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB, printer is an Epson R1800, Photoshop is set to control color and ICM on printer is OFF, custom color profiles are used for paper/printer combination.

Should one convert the image color space to the printer color profile prior to printing or does the Adobe engine do that automatically when the correct color profile is entered in the print menu?

If manual converting to the printer profile shouldn't be done, should the image be converted from the ProPhotoRGB to a narrower color space, such as adobeRGB or sRGB or does the Photoshop print engine make that conversion a moot point?

Thanks in advance.
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If you are using ACR to comvert your raw images, convert into ProPhoto, to retain the huge gamut your camera can give you.  Convert to 16 bits!

In PS, use soft-proof to see if/where your printer will have problems with the gamut of the image.  Test perceptual vs. relative colorimetric vs. absolute colorimetric, and check black point compensation on and off.  You'll be able to see which rendering gives the appearance you want.

Use the gamut clipping view to see where the problem areas are.  You may wish to manually desaturate, brighten, hue shift, or ignore these areas.

When you print-with-preview, PS will convert your ProPhoto edit space into the printer/paper type space you set.

[Carl Harsch]

Thanks for the reply.  That's pretty much my workflow now, although I'm not very diligent about checking for gamut clipping.

[Mark D Segal]

When you print-with-preview, PS will convert your ProPhoto edit space into the printer/paper type space you set.
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I don't think this part is quite correct. When you print, (regardless of whether you use Print with Preview or not - that is needed mainly to set-up your preferences), the edit spaces do not get converted to printer spaces. The image file data is sent to the printer with the printing preferences you have specified (printer profile, BPC, rendering intent, etc.) and the printer driver reinterprets the RGB data to CMYK for printing, without of course permanently affecting the original file data.