Color Management panel
The Color Management panel provides control over color-managed jobs. Options in this panel are available only if color management is enabled in Edit > Color Settings.
The Color Management panel controls how document colors are sent to the output device.
Even when color management is on, some color management options may be unavailable if the targeted device doesn’t support the options. In the device-independent output path shown above, the target device is intentionally unknown.
Print area
Options in this area define the color space within which the document colors are prepared for output. The Print area contains the following options:
Document: Prepares to send document colors in the document’s working color space as specified in the Edit > Color Settings dialog box. If the document working space is already set correctly, it’s usually correct to leave this setting at the default.
Proof: Prepares to send document color after translating it into the color space currently selected in the View > Proof Setup menu. This is usually used for special cases only, such as when the colors to be sent are different from both the working color space and the output device. A common example of using the Proof option is simulating the document’s current Proof Setup
(such as newsprint) on a proofing device with a larger gamut than the press (such as an inkjet printer). By setting the Proof profile to the profile of the final output device and setting the
Printer Profile to the proofing device, the document is represented in the gamut of the device being proofed before being sent to the proofing device. Using this feature, proofing newsprint on an inkjet printer prints the job accurately, using only the colors within the gamut of newsprint.
Options area
This area defines the color space within which the source space colors will be sent to the final output device. The availability of options depends on the selected printer driver and the color management settings for the document. The Print Space area contains the following options:
Color Handling: Specifies whether the colors will be adjusted for the output device by InDesign or by the output device. In most cases, choose Let InDesign Determine Colors, so that InDesign uses its own color management to perform any necessary color conversion for the final output
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device. A reminder (blue balloon) appears if additional settings are recommended to prevent accidental situations such as double color management; move the mouse over the balloon to read the reminder at the bottom of the panel. When printing to an Adobe PostScript printer that supports PostScript color management, the PostScript® Printer Determines Color option is available in the pop-up menu; this lets the output device perform the color conversions.
Printer Profile: Specifies the color space within which the source space colors will be sent to the output device. Set the Printer Profile to match your final output device, even if it’s different than the CMYK profile of the document. To maintain the color values of CMYK objects, make sure Preserve CMYK Numbers is selected. These CMYK options don’t affect RGB objects, which are converted to CMYK according to the current color management settings. CMYK objects are preseparated for a specific set of printing conditions. If the printing conditions of the Document
CMYK profile are significantly different than on the CMYK device represented by the Printer
Profile, you may want to make sure that customers are aware of and comfortable with the differences, or see if other profile settings are appropriate.
Output Color: Indicates how the color is being sent to the output device; this reports the setting of the Color pop-up menu in the Output panel, which determines the availability of other options in this panel. In addition, the Preserve CMYK/RGB Numbers and Simulate Paper Color options may be available if composite output is specified. Select Preserve CMYK/RGB Numbers to maintain the original color values of objects without profiles and to convert objects with embedded profiles to the Destination profile. This option is useful for protecting the preseparated color values of CMYK images. If you choose PostScript® Printer Determines Color as the
Color Handling setting, you’ll typically want to select Preserve CMYK Numbers.
Note: All options are not always applicable to all output scenarios, so the availability and labeling of options in this area depends on the combination of settings you make in the Printer pop-up menu, the Color pop-up menu in the Output panel, and the setting in the Print area of this panel.
For example, if the selected Printer is an imagesetter and you set the Color pop-up menu to
Separations, CMYK device profiles appear in the Printer Profile pop-up menu, and RGB profiles are not shown. If you target a desktop inkjet printer that uses a non-PostScript RGB driver, RGB profiles are shown and CMYK profiles are not.
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