LR 4.2 convert or embed color profiles?

Costco print services use Dry Creek Photo profiles. They ask that files be converted to color profiles in PS and say that embedded profiles will be ignored by their digital printers. I wonder if I can do this in LR4.2 without going to PS CS6.
In Lightroom 4.2, we can choose color profiles in the print module or in the export dialog. Do you know whether specifying a color profile in these will result in a converting or embedding of those files?
Thanks,
Bill Twieg
Windows 7

Thanks Andrew, that was my undertstanding as well – Also for pointing out that the Noritsu and Frontier printers have areas that are outside the sRGB gamut. For anyone interested you can create the 3D wire models here:
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/tools/printer_gamuts/gamutmodel.html
You'll need to download a VRML plugin to use it. Here's one of the Costco profiles showing the area that falls outside the sRGB gamut:
You can see an area in the Green (-a) region that falls outside the sRGB gamut, which will not render properly if you send sRGB profiled files (i.e. Export from LR's ProPhoto RGB to sRGB) to Costco.
Here's my take on Costco's Noritsu & Frontier printer workflow.
Normal processing is with Auto Correct ON, which expects sRGB profiled images with no adjustments. With Auto Correct ON the sRGB image is converted by the printer using the printer profile for the selected paper type. It apparently also applies some kind of Auto Contrast and perhaps Auto Color Correction for white balancing. This analysis is based purely on print results obtained using standard sRGB images with Auto Correct ON.
With Auto Correct OFF the printer does not apply any Contrast or Color correction and a printer profile is not applied to the image. If this is correct then it is absolutely necessary to "convert" your images to the Costco printer profile for the target paper type after making your Soft Proof adjustments. You should also preview different rendering intents in Soft Proof as outlined on the Dry Creek website. PS has more options using 'Customize Proof Condition' than available in LR.
The best analogy I can think of is Auto Correct On = "Managed By Printer" and Auto Correct OFF = "Managed By Application" (i.e. PS or LR).
I'll try to verify this with my local Costco Photo Lab manager.

Similar Messages

How to solve the Embed Color Profile problem...

Hi Everyone,
This vijay from Chennai. I have one doubt for rectify the Embed color Profile problem, that's is how can i judges whether the file had Embed Color Profile or not. anyone solve this problem.
Thanks in Advance.
-yajiv

I used another profiles name, because I dont have the old one installed anymore, Youll have to be exact about the letters though.
And from a prepress-standpoint Id like to point out that removing the profile as opposed to »Convert to Profile« seems a peculiar practice, though of course Your reasons for doing so may be valid indeed.
You could try:
var myDocument = app.activeDocument;
if (myDocument.colorProfileName == "U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2") {
// =======================================================
var idassignProfile = stringIDToTypeID( "assignProfile" );
var desc2 = new ActionDescriptor();
var idnull = charIDToTypeID( "null" );
var ref1 = new ActionReference();
var idDcmn = charIDToTypeID( "Dcmn" );
var idOrdn = charIDToTypeID( "Ordn" );
var idTrgt = charIDToTypeID( "Trgt" );
ref1.putEnumerated( idDcmn, idOrdn, idTrgt );
desc2.putReference( idnull, ref1 );
var idmanage = stringIDToTypeID( "manage" );
desc2.putBoolean( idmanage, false );
executeAction( idassignProfile, desc2, DialogModes.NO );
else {

Converting to CMYK color profile (for print) in raw format

I am looking to self publish a cookbook in lightningsource. They need the photos in cmyk format. When is it best to convert to this color profile from rgb?
I have bridge CS5
What I'm doing currently:
I click on my .arw image file and select "open in camera raw" which brings me to an editing screen. At the very bottom is says rgb, and 240 ppi
I need 300 ppi at least and cmyk color.
Now I know how to change these things in Photoshop, but I was taught that editing it in camera raw in bridge is better to preserve quality for print.
Should I just edit it in raw and then convert to 300 dpi and cmyk color in photoshop? Or is there a way to do this in bridge? Whats the difference? Any advice will help, trying to make my pictures look amazing in print

Correct me if I misunderstood anything!
You are on the right track except for the ppi story. The ppi settings just are a figure expressing the amount of pixels stored in 1 inch, without the width and height figures of the image itself you can't do much with it and just changing this figure is not changing the total amount of available pixels.
For instance create a new document at 300 ppi and use the international paper size A4 (21 x 29,7 cm). The amount of pixels is 2480 x 3508 (roughly the result of an 8 MP dSLR.
Use the image size option in PS and be sure to not resample (meaning creating new pixels or deleting pixels to alter the original file size that is 24,9 MB). Now change the amount of pixels to whatever you like. If you increase the number the width and height decrease, and vice versa. Yet the amount of pixels and file size stay at 2480 x 3508 and 24,9 MB.
But with the specs of wanted width and height for the end result of 300 ppi starts making sense.
For instance you have a image at the size of a post stamp and an image at international paper size (A4) and both are 300 ppi. The small post stamp size would be in cm about 2 x 3,5 while the A4 size has about 21 x 30 cm width and height.
So you can imagine having both needed to be printed at the A4 size in 300 dpi (printers work with dots, hence they use dpi - dots per inch- and while not the same they both often use the 300 figure and stand for pretty high quality result) the A4 sized original will meet the wanted standards without problems while the post stamp would have to be resampled to the new A4 size and when having still 300 ppi needed there would be a lot of interpolation (creating new pixels to match the new size) and this would often result in pixelated or worse quality print result, because PS has to use guess (albeit quit educated guessing) work to add more pixels that are needed to reach the new dimensions.
ACR has the advantage to set the ppi by default at 300 but as said, as long as you don't alter width and height of the original it is just a figure without any significant importance until you know the complete specs for the output source.

Embed Color Profile When Saving In Photoshop?

Hi all -
Let's say I am saving a TIFF as a background for a DVDSP 4 menu out of Photoshop. Do I want to have the Embed Color Profile checked or not? How does a make a difference to DVDSP (if it does)? Mine is set to sRGB IEC61966-2.1
Thanks,
Jason

I believe sRGB is the default for most screen-based systems such as DVD studio. You shouldn't notice a significant shift if you stay in this color space in DVD studio. Just make sure it isn't Adobe RGB. This is a very specialized space for advanced Photography for use with hexachrome printing workflows. Monitors and TV's can't reproduce the colors represented in Adobe RGB and it is unwise to make color decisions on such monitors without advanced training on how and why to use wider color spaces such as Adobe RGB. In contrast sRGB is created to be about the same as most monitors ad TV's so what you see is very similar to what will be visible on your target medium.

Why embed color profiles?

I understand color profiles as translators of the image data for the device to show as it shoudl appear (to me, the human eye)
Why not apply this translation as a conversion (profile tells how the color values shoudl appear, right?) and done with it. Then the monitor should use it's profile to show the file correctly.
The whole idea of "working space" or choosing/applying a profile to an image seems only to apply this translation (the profile).
Why ask? Or why even have an image + profile, when one can simply do image x profile = a single profiled origianl image? In RAW conversion is this not what we are doing? And if so, why have the profile name attached to the file, when it is already converted?
Or did I got it all wrong? When I think I get it, soon I start to see - may be I am not getting it

As this topic (color management) makes me to research and learn continuously, I am curious to understand more about your comment on LAB: "...numerous issues with Lab although the fact it's self defining (until you ask about white point)" What about the white point in LAB? I don't know if that should be another discussion.
In the meantime I got my answers, and a book called "Color Confidence" seems to clarify it well. In fact it has a reddish text box just for the precise question "Why not Lab?" ("why embed profile" is implied in the context). What pinned it well was the statement "Of course, provided a profile is embedded in an image file, the RGB and CMYK values are, in a way, stored as LAB..."
The text can be found in Google books preview: http://books.google.co.in/books?id=XprFp9u4lcAC&q=why+not+lab
what appeals to me now, is this:
The intention is to give real world colors and consistently accross devices (with different color spaces)
To achieve it, it is done through profiles
Original digital image (RGB or CMYK) are easier to edit as RGB or CMYK (user friendly to move those sliders of R G and B) than LAB sliders (are there sliders in LAB? I have not explored)
Though one could have untagged files, adding a profile tries to dictate some consistency to them for further use/editing. If that was not fixed for the digital image, it will be free for each app to use any color profile and make colors look different each time. I am not even talking of display and print profile here, assume they were all set.
My botheration has only been the first step of digital image. Not display and print profiles, that is, why is the original digital not converted to LAB? Now it becomes clear.

Embed color profile for Spot Multichannel

Is it possible to embed a color profile into a multichannel file made up of spot colors onlys ? More specifically can you embed custom dot gain curves into such file like you can for other color spaces like CMYK. ?

As far as I know, there is no connection or relation between gamma and dot gain. However, if your workflow excludes print media, you do not have to indicate any type of dot gain and, therefore, can assign a particular gamma to your "video" intended image ( i.e., television graphics, powerpoint oresentation files, etc. ). So, if you knew you are heading for a 30% dot gain ( i.e. offset press, magazine or newsprint, etc. ), then assign it in the working space dialog in PS. Again, this is my interpretation of gamma vs. dot gain. Once you understand the dynamics of the working space ( i.e., what you typically work on day-to-day )), then it sort of makes sense. I suppose if I were to suddenly be assigned to work on a video graphics project, I could change my gamma and eliminate dot gain because there is none. I'd just have to remember to go back and re-assign dot gain for my print projects. If, for instance, I was chosen to design a logo graphicv for a TV news program, perhaps a gamma of 2.2 would help the appearance of the color's brightness on screen. It comes down to the final application of the file itself. That's my take on it.

Color profiles for I photo books

Is there a desired color profile to use for printing books with i photo
My images are currently adobe-rgb. jpegs brought in from CS
When I print the images thru CS they look great.
When i print them thru I photo book or the PDF they look very dark and muddy...and would assume the same of the book printing online.
any ideas on how to get the best print.
Is there a color profile availabe from the online book printers or are we just winging it
Also tried converting one page to S-RGB Still Muddy / dark thru i photo book
and PDF Print. And just fine thru CS
Any Ideas??
Thank you

I guess I am going to throw caution to the wind and see what happens.
Only one way to find out, Right
Though I did go back and lighten my images. Also
Ran color synch utility, which fixed 11 corrupt color profiles.(none of the 11 profiles pertained to i photo)
I guess I am afraid to use pref setter,, to set the key embed color profile.
Confused as to what that means??? Does that mean that all my CS Adobe-RGB jpegs will keep their color profile???
Also implanted one image as an SRGB vs the rest which will all be AdobeRGB
Oddly my color management in CS is almost Flawless. Yet, get me out of CS and I am completely lost!!!! Complicated stuff
Toad, I did want to pass on that AdobeRGB 1998 is a much more robust color profile then SRGB especially when it come to printing on Epson. It might be worth experimenting with and if you really want to get into it there is also
Pro photo RGB which is Huge color space, but a beast to work with
Here is a link
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtml
Will report back on my book
TF

Possibility to assign a color profile in the color management tab for more video formats

Presently, in After Effects CS5, in the color management tab of the "Interpret Footage" dialog box the possibility to assign a color profile to footage is grayed out for many video formats.
Formats that allow to assign a color profile include Quicktime/JPEG2000, Quicktime/Motion JPEG A, Quicktime/Motion JPEG B, Quicktime/MPEG-4, Quicktime/Animation as well as various image sequences, like tiff-sequences. (Motion JPEG A,B and Quicktime/MPEG-4 are not very helpful in this context because they have a small color shift when reimported to After Effects.)
Formats that do not allow to assign a color profile include Quicktime/PhotoJPEG, Quicktime/H264, H264 main concept, DVCPRO HD 1080p30, F4V. (Here, H264 main concept has anyway the disadvantage that it has a color shift when reimported into After Effects.)
In After Effects CS4 it was possible to assign a color profile to Quicktime/H264, Quicktime/PhotoJPEG, DVCPRO HD 1080p30, but in CS5 this is no longer possible.
Those video formats that do not allow to assign a color profile automatically are interpreted as having the color profile HDTV (Rec. 709) Y'CbCr in case that the videos have 1920x1080 format; similar applies to PAL formats which get SDTV (Rec. 709) Y'CbCr color profile.
(I did not find anything of this automatic assignment to HDTV or SDTV color profile in the "interpretation rules.txt" file, therefore it must be written into the programme itself.)
With growing popularity of wide gamut monitors it becomes necessary to produce footage and other videos that have a color profile different from HDTV or sRGB. When such footage is reimported to After Effects it has the wrong color and the only workarounds are either to use (in After Effects) the effect "Color profile converter" which necessitates extra render time or to use somewhat unpopular formats, like JPEG2000 that has very large filesize.
Presently many footage is produced in Quicktime/PhotoJPEG and therefore it would be very desirable to allow to assign a color profile to such footage in the color management tab of the "Interpret Footage" dialog box.
Does anyone know why in AE CS5 the video formats Quicktime/PhotoJPEG and Quicktime/H264 do not allow to have an arbitrary color profile assigned (although it was possible in CS4), is it a bug, or does it have a deeper reason.
In this context I have a related question, often I read that Quicktime videos have a gamma tag. Does this mean that part of the color profile (the gamma value) is actually embedded/remembered, like you have it for images where the gamma is part the embedded color profile.
I use AE CS5 on Mac Pro 2009 with OS 10.6.7.
Thanks,
Volker

Thank you Rick for this interesting explanations and the links to articles.
In the past few days I performed a few tests in After Effects and it is interesting that you mention that cameras, like the Sony EX3, allow videos to have embedded color profiles. I am not working myself with cameras but either get footage from the internet or sometimes videos from our video department which produces videos with professional SONY cameras, usually I get them in a matrox mxf format.
As far as my test with After Effects show it is not possible to embed color profiles in the videos rendered with After Effects. Independent of the color profile in the working space and independent from the color profile in the output module I always get the same reaction if I reimport videos rendered by After Effects back to After Effects:
In AE CS5 videos made in the formats Quicktime/PhotoJPEG, Quicktime/H264, H264 main concept, DVCPRO HD 1080p30, F4V are always interpreted as color profile SDTV/HDTV (Rec. 709) Y'CbCr (even if I made them in other color profiles, such as Adobe RGB, Photo RGB, sRGB); and there is no possibility to change this interpretation rule.
In contrast videos made in the formats Quicktime/JPEG2000, Quicktime/Motion JPEG A, Quicktime/Motion JPEG B, Quicktime/MPEG-4, Quicktime/Animation are always interpreted as sRGB (even if if I made them in other color profiles, such as Adobe RGB, Photo RGB, HDTV); only this time I can change the interpretation rule. Therefore if I know for example that if I had selected Photo RGB in the Output module I can change after the reimport the interpretation rule from sRGB to Photo RGB and only then I get again the original colors.
The only exceptions are picture sequences, such as tiff-sequences, where the original color profile is automatically selected in the interpretation of the footage.
Therefore, unfortunately for videos produced by After Effects your advice "If it says something like sRGB and you can change it, in most cases you shouldn't change it because the guess is probably right. If there is no color profile assigned then you should assume that is correct." is not so easy to be applied. You have to know how you did it originally in the Output module and hope that you can change it to the proper color profile, in case that the original color profile in the Output module was different from sRGB and HDTV/SDTV. But it is interesting to hear from you that with cameras there seem to be more possibilities.
For this reason it would be nice if in future versions of After Effects one could change the color profile in the the color management tab of the "Interpret Footage" dialog box also for formats such as Quicktime/PhotoJPEG, Quicktime/H264, H264 main concept, DVCPRO HD 1080p30, F4V.
Of course one can always circumvent shortcomings by using tiff-sequences, QT/jpeg2000, or QT/Animation as formats for storing, which is anyway better for lossless or nearly lossless storing, but the files are then too large and also cannot be played easily with a player.
Volker

Disappearing color profile when saved for the Web

Hello.
I have a problem with the “Save for the Web” results using Photoshop CS6 running on Win 7 x64.
My photos are already in 8 bits and in sRGB and when I save for the Web I check the option “embed color profile”, uncheck “convert to sRGB”, metadata to “copyright and contact info”.
When I open the resulting photos in Photoshop, everything is fine as it recognizes the embedded color profile. Same thing when I open these files in Firefox, Safari or Chrome: the colors are correct.
Now, when I right-click on a file in the Win Explorer and look its properties, the line about the color profile is blank, as if there wasn't any. This doesn't bother me but the problem appears on my Website created with Joomla and using for the display a module, Responsive Image Gallery, which creates resized copies of the photos. At this point the copies have completely lost their color profile. I entered in contact with the module's support and they assured me that it preserves the embedded profile, so I come here to gather some information about how this “Save for the Web” embeds the color profile because may be I just didn't understand how it does and if it's different from the “Save as” way.
The fact I can't see the profile through the Win Explorer makes me think Joomla's module doesn't either.

Incredible how much gballard's site is famous! Lol. I use it for a while now and checked again right now with the three Web browsers and everything is all right.
As indicated in my first post, when saving for the Web I checked the “embed color profile” option. I already resized the file and converted it in sRGB first in Photoshop.
Yes it's pretty confusing to see some software not able to see the color profile when the file is saved with that option.
To illustrate, here are three screenshots from Windows' file browser => right-ckick on the file => properties => details:
Opening that “saved for the Web” file in PS, it's ok, the CP is recognized.
Opening it directly (from the file browser => “open with”) in Web browsers: ok in Firefox, Safari and Chrome (CP recognized in all).
Copying that file in my working site on localhost (no modification), integer it in Joomla's module gallery (which is CP aware) and then opening my site on localhost with Web browsers: ok in Firefox (because it considers a non-tagged file by default as beeing sRGB), NOT OK in Safari neither in Chrome.
Now, if I do the same with the “Save as” version of the file with embedded sRGB CP:
PS: ok
Opened directly in Web browsers: ok in the three cases
Opened in Web browsers through my Joomla site on localhost: OK IN ALL THREE BROWSERS
Good point gator_soup: I'll post a bug report. I'm new here on the forum and thought Adobe's staff would post here.

Color profile when changing from RGB to CMYK

I prefer to work on images in RGB then change to cmyk once I'm sure i won't need to run any more effects or filters on them. When I save an image the first time, I have the option to embed my color profile with the image. It embeds the RGB profile... the only option as long as I'm working in RGB. What I've noticed though, is that after converting to cmyk, I don't get any warnings or other indication that it needs me to embed the color profile. I need to do a save-as in order to get back to that option.
So the question is... does Photoshop automatically switch to my default CMYK color profile when I convert to CMYK? So when I save, it's now using the CMYK profile?

Save your original RGB file.
Then, RGB file > Edit > Convert to Profile (with CMYK#1) > Save As...
This creates your first CMYK file.
Then, back to original RGB file > Edit > Convert to Profile (with CMYK#2) > Save As...
This creates your second CMYK file.
Then, back to original RGB file > Edit > Convert to Profile (with CMYK#3) > Save As...
This creates your third CMYK file.
In all cases, be sure you have "Embed Color Profile" checked at the bottom of the Save As dialog. When naming a file, it's handy to include some sort of indication as to the color space.
In the end, you have four files: 1 RGB file, 3 CMYK files.

Choosing Color Profiles for Images Created on Film

I just finished sending feedback to Adobe on one of its tutorials. The following is a copy of my message explaining my present predicament.
<< I have scanned film negatives and positive film transparencies dating back to the 1950's .I was the creator of most of these images but I do not remember the make or model of the cameras I was using at any point in time prior to 1974 and they all lack metadata. Prior to 2000 I used iPhoto and PS Elements for scanning, toning and development. Thus I can only guess what color profile I should use. I want to create TIFFS that will serve a dual purpose: exporting two formats, one for electronic sharing and the other for printing. On the Adobe CC, if I guess wrong, LR 5.6 64bit crashes immediately. Prior stand alone versions of LR and CS6 let you know that you had a color inconsistency, but they did not crash when you had made a wrong choice between srgb and ProPhoto. ACC gives me more options, but no warnings unless I am missing something your Help Files should contain.>>
David Krupp Win7 64bit
Chicago, IL 773-281-6278. [email protected]

I guess I am going to throw caution to the wind and see what happens.
Only one way to find out, Right
Though I did go back and lighten my images. Also
Ran color synch utility, which fixed 11 corrupt color profiles.(none of the 11 profiles pertained to i photo)
I guess I am afraid to use pref setter,, to set the key embed color profile.
Confused as to what that means??? Does that mean that all my CS Adobe-RGB jpegs will keep their color profile???
Also implanted one image as an SRGB vs the rest which will all be AdobeRGB
Oddly my color management in CS is almost Flawless. Yet, get me out of CS and I am completely lost!!!! Complicated stuff
Toad, I did want to pass on that AdobeRGB 1998 is a much more robust color profile then SRGB especially when it come to printing on Epson. It might be worth experimenting with and if you really want to get into it there is also
Pro photo RGB which is Huge color space, but a beast to work with
Here is a link
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtml
Will report back on my book
TF

Printer adds blue, how do I fix this? color profile? calibration?

I have an HP 3210 printer and iphoto 06.
When I make a copy of a picture with the printer in stand alone mode, the copy is almost an exact.
When I scan the photo into iphoto and print it, the printer seems to add blue.
How do I fix this?
Can I create a custom solor profile or something to get it right?

Patrick:
First, you did check your ink cartridges to make sure you're not out in any of them? Duh. Make sure your monitor is calibrated. I use sRGB as the profile and adjust the brightness to make up for the aging monitor. Setting the gamma at 2.2 will help with just darkness.
Do you have iPhoto's Advanced preferences set to Embed Color Profile? Not sure what would cause too much blue but in the Advanced printer settings under the Copies and Pages menu there are a couple of sections that you can use to adjust the print settings; Color Option and ColorSync. Create a new setting under the Presets menu and save those settings before each trial so that once you get what you want it will be easy to just select that preset and print.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 08 libraries. iPhoto does not have to be closed to run the application, just idle. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

Converting RGB to DNG without affecting color profiles

Hi guys
I'm working with the DNG SDK in C++ for some time now. I need to be able to take a raw RGB (not camera raw) and convert it into a dng file. After playing arond with it for a few days, I realized creating the camera profile drastically affects the resulting dng image.
I can't seem to produce a dng file that was identical to the input source. My picture appears very washed out and I end up using the adobe color profiler to try to bring the image back close to it's original color.
I'm trying to find a way to produce dng files without the need to affect the colors in any way, the resulting picture should be bit identical to that of the raw RGB input file.
I'm not even sure if I can do this considering the usage of the dng format.
UPDATE
I've realized that my program is loading the RGB buffer into the fData of the stage3 image object. I have a feeling I need stages1 and 2 but i'm unsure if I need to and if so, then i will probaby need a source DNG to produce those stage1 and stage2 unless I can get stage1 or 2 from stage 3 (appears it works vice versa).
I'm able to do the reverse (DNG to RGB raw) by extracting the buffer from the stage3 render. but in this case, all the metadata has been filled in by the input DNG. However, going from RGB to DNG, I don't have the metadata to fill into stage 1 and 2.

My understanding of the JPG is only middling. I thought I understood that it uses anchor pixels and either a translation table of some sort or difference mapping, using 8 bits per piece of information.
If that were the case, surely changing the translation from CMYK to RGB would be fairly simple.
In this case, the usage is Ebay and they only accept JPG, PNG (and maybe BMP and GIF, I didn't look that closely), but require RGB. I was actually quite surprised to find that JPG allows CMYK since, as you say, anyone dealing with CMYK is going to be dealing with commercial printing and few people who deal with commercial printing would play around with JPG.
I always stick to TIFF or PSD for workflow, but JPG is popular for a reason - when it comes to web, JPG is the only format that can deliver manageable file sizes with full-screen or "large" images for web. Our top level banner photo is 2590x692 and needs to be under 400kb for sane download speeds. PNG couldn't touch that. Even with the aforementioned 1800x1200, PNG is nearly 2mb, while I can maintain very decent quality with a 500kb file with JPG that works well for 'zoom in' type usage.
So there's no way around JPG. It's just annoying that the first person to touch a random selection of the pics was primarily an Illustrator user and saved *some* of the pics in CMYK mode.
It's like that old story about the farmer who didn't want anyone to steal his watermelons, so he cleverly posted a sign "None of these watermelons are poisoned", only to find a note the next day saying "Now, One of these watermelons is...".
Far more work to fix 'some' of the images compared to just doing it right the first time.
But then again, for workers like that, if you can't trust them with an easy job, you could hardly trust them with more complicated jobs...

Convert Colors profile to threshold to black? [A9]

Is there a reasonable way to create a color profile that can be used with Convert Colors to apply a threshold (180/255) function to convert an RGB PDF into a black-and-white PDF? Acrobat 9 (CS5), OSX 10.6.7.
I have some multipage PDF files I want to "sharpen" (make clearer) before printing, and found that opening a page in Photoshop and applying Image > Adjustment > Threshold to 180 (out of 255) does a nice job. This is a pain for multipage PDFs because I have to extract the pages from Acrobat, apply a batch action in Photoshop, and then (potentially) re-integrate them into a PDF file.
Acrobat can apply ICC profiles to convert an image via Advanced > Print Production > Convert Colors. But how can I generate an ICC profile that does something analagous to the threshold function?
One crummy way is in Photoshop. Edit > Color Settings, which allows you to define a custom CMYK profile. Under Dot gain, you can set transfer function curves for C,M,Y, and K. I tried doing that, with curves at zero up until 70%, at which point I ran them straight up to 100% with a very steep (almost vertical slope).Tried a bunch of GCR/UCR/Black conversion settings. I saved the profile so Acrobat could see it. This gave me weird results:
In Photoshop, it came close to doing what I wanted, but not totally, when I converted the image to that profile. But it wasn't drastically wrong. But when I applied the same profile in acrobat (with Convert Colors), it looked much much worse, with large blocky pixel groups and the document, which was mostly a raster image of text, almost unreadable.
(Sorry for the lack of screenshots/images -- they're at the office, I'll post them tomorrow...)
Any tips? Is there a better way to do what I want and apply a simple transform to a PDF file?
A better tool to create ICC profiles for Acrobat's Convert Colors?
Am I just using the wrong settings in Photoshop?
Thanks!

OK, some more info. So, my PDF contains letter-size pages with 300dpi 8bpp images that are DeviceRGB DCT-encoded (JPEG). Here's how Acrobat displays one of the characters:
(All those obvious JPEG artifacts which explain why it prints badly and would benefit from processing). It looks pretty much the same in Photoshop (via Edit Image from Acrobat, or opening the PDF file directly). Thresholding it to 180 in Photoshop does a great job:
For simplicity, I tried to build a Gray profile that did what I wanted. But it looks like Photoshop's gray profiles only let you adjust dot gain and gamma, and neither of those are sufficient to achieve this kind of effect. RGB doesn't let you use curves. So I converted the image to CMYK, and then Edit > Convert to Profile, then choose CMYK and Custom CMYK and define a profile like this:
with these Curves:
And it seems to do the right thing when the image is converted to it in Photoshop; not perfect but much better than the source:
So, back to Acrobat, and apply the profile with Convert Colors:
basically a disaster. and some very faint jpeg artifacts turn into a big blue rectangle.
So what to do? Is there a better way to construct these profiles? Or should I give up and use batch operations?

Do images imported to Keynote retain their previous color profile? In other words, if the Keynote presentation will be shown using an sRGB profile projector, should the images be converted to sRGB prior to importing?

Do images imported to Keynote retain their previous color profile? In other words, if the Keynote presentation will be shown using an sRGB profile projector, should the images be converted to sRGB prior to importing or can they be batch adjusted in Keynote?

While I feel your comment doesn't directly address my question, why I am worrying is this.
This presentation is to a camera club. Color is important. Images shown in meetings are projected by an sRGB color profile projector. Most serious photographers us a color profile with a bigger space than sRGB (typically RGB1998). If you project an RGB1998 image on an sRGB projector the colors go to crap. More precisely they become dull and lifeless. Thus, I am trying to determine whether I need to convert the images I plan to put into my Keynote to sRGB and boost the saturation PRIOR to importing them or whether Keynote has a way to do this as part of the software.
Jerry

LR 4.2 convert or embed color profiles?

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