Customizing advanced color management settings

The following rendering intent options are available.

Perceptual Known as the Image intent in Adobe PageMaker and Illustrator 8, Perceptual aims to preserve the visual relationship between colors in a way that is perceived as natural to the human eye, although the color values themselves may change.This intent is most suitable for photographic images.

Saturation Known as the Graphics intent in Adobe PageMaker and Illustrator 8, Saturation aims to create vivid color at the expense of accurate color. It scales the source gamut to the destination gamut, but preserves relative saturation instead of hue, so when scaling to a smaller gamut, hues may shift. This rendering intent is suitable for business graphics, where the exact relationship between colors is not as important as having bright saturated colors.

Relative Colorimetric This intent is identical to Absolute Colorimetric except for the following difference: Relative Colorimetric compares the white point of the source color space to that of the destination color space and shifts all colors accordingly. Although the perceptual rendering intent has traditionally been the most common choice for photographic imagery, Relative Colorimetric —with the Use Black Point Compensation option selected in the Color Settings dialog box—can be a better choice for preserving color relationships without sacrificing color accuracy. Relative Colorimetric is the default rendering intent used by all predefined configurations in the Settings menu of the Color Settings dialog box.

Absolute Colorimetric Leaves colors that fall inside the destination gamut unchanged. This intent aims to maintain color accuracy at the expense of preserving relationships between colors. When translating to a smaller gamut, two colors that are distinct in the source space may be mapped to the same color in the destination space. Absolute Colorimetric can be more accurate if the image’s color profile contains correct white point (extreme highlight) information.

Using black-point compensation

The Use Black Point Compensation option controls whether to adjust for differences in black points when converting colors between color spaces. When this option is selected, the full dynamic range of the source space is mapped into the full dynamic range of the destination space. When deselected, the dynamic range of the source space is simulated in the destination space; although this mode can result in blocked or gray shadows, it can be useful when the black point of the source space is darker than that of the destination space.

The Use Black Point Compensation option is selected for all predefined configurations in the Settings menu of the Color Settings dialog box. It is highly recommended that you keep this option selected.

Using dither

The Use Dither (8-bit/channel images) option controls whether to dither colors when converting 8-bit-per-channel images between color spaces. When this 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.