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Author Topic: Disable colour management within PS or Adobe Color Printer Utility?  (Read 806 times)

TonyW

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I have always been in the habit of using the Adobe Color Printer Utility (ACPU) application to targets to ensure no color management applied.

Recently I have been asked "why do this when you can do the same thing in PS?"  It was suggested that picking Printer manages colour in the print dialogue and making sure that OFF or NONE selected in the printer driver colour correction did exactly the same job as ACPU.

I have not tried this approach but it seems wrong to me although I cannot explain why.  Maybe I missed the memo or as an old dog refuse to believe in new tricks  :-\
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digitaldog

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Re: Disable colour management within PS or Adobe Color Printer Utility?
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2023, 09:30:34 am »

You cannot do the same in Photoshop since like CS5 or CS6 (so long ago I don't recall).
Whoever recommends this is wrong.
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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Re: Disable colour management within PS or Adobe Color Printer Utility?
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2023, 09:33:06 am »

Well, when it says that the 'printer manages the colour' that's what it's doing.

On a Mac you get the option of the printer doing the colour matching or ColorSync colour matching.

With my printers (Canon) when the printer manages the colour the driver chooses a 'profile' dependent on the paper type selected in the driver.  These are Canon's own profiles.

The only way to print without colour management is to use ACPU or, on the Mac, Preview.

If you select the application to manage the colour (e.g. Photoshop or Lightroom) then colour management by the printer is automatically turned-off.  However, if you try to print a profiling target which does not have a profile attached the operating system, at least on a Mac, will impose a profile of some sort (probably sRGB).
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digitaldog

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Re: Disable colour management within PS or Adobe Color Printer Utility?
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2023, 09:41:55 am »

Also on Mac using the ColorSync Utility.
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TonyW

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Re: Disable colour management within PS or Adobe Color Printer Utility?
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2023, 12:03:00 pm »

Thanks Andrew and Simon.  Sorry I really should have said working with a PC (where there is more room to mess CM up e.g. double profile/no profile!).

Looking at the print driver dialogue for Epson and Canon on my system selecting Printer manages in PS then the driver offers the opportunity to turn off CM as attachment.  The assumption is that PS has given up all control of CM and the printer has also not applied a profile. 

I have not actually tried this as a comparison to using ACPU.  My impression has always been that applying no profile by selecting Printer manages in PS and None or Off in the printer driver would tend to give a print with a green cast whereas double profiling will lead to a magenta cast.



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digitaldog

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Re: Disable colour management within PS or Adobe Color Printer Utility?
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2023, 01:39:09 pm »

Looking at the print driver dialogue for Epson and Canon on my system selecting Printer manages in PS then the driver offers the opportunity to turn off CM as attachment. 
But it doesn't fully do so and never has. That's a totally different print path than Application Manages Color. Worse, depending on the Windows version and driver, all you're doing is converting the source data into sRGB! That's hardly no color management.
IF you want to disable color management such that numbers in (the document) are sent to the printer, for making a target to profile etc, you cannot do this in modern versions of Photoshop. Hence ACPU. Or an application unlike PS that actually has a no color management path. Printer Manages Color is not that path!
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TonyW

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Re: Disable colour management within PS or Adobe Color Printer Utility?
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2023, 02:30:14 pm »

But it doesn't fully do so and never has. That's a totally different print path than Application Manages Color. Worse, depending on the Windows version and driver, all you're doing is converting the source data into sRGB! That's hardly no color management.
IF you want to disable color management such that numbers in (the document) are sent to the printer, for making a target to profile etc, you cannot do this in modern versions of Photoshop. Hence ACPU. Or an application unlike PS that actually has a no color management path. Printer Manages Color is not that path!
Thanks Andrew that makes sense now that you have spelled it out  ;D 
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