GBALLARD

Acrobat> View> Tools> Print Production> Convert Colors

by Gary Ballard, a professional photojournalist in San Diego with an interest in basic color-management workflows, ADOBE® ACROBAT© PHOTOSHOP® are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems, Inc.
February 2013

HOW TO CONVERT ICC PROFILES USING ACROBAT PRO CS5 CS6 MAC WINDOWS

This Acrobat color-management tutorial will cover how to successfully perform profile conversions in Acrobat 10.1 using its Print Production> Convert Colors feature.

ACROBAT XI recently got caught up in troubleshooting a suspected Photoshop PDF bug and began writinging this work-flow article to figure out what was happening to my colors in Acrobat during a simple Source> Destination profile conversion maneuver.

First, I will demonstrate my theory about how Acrobat Pro interacts with embedded ICC profiles and Untagged elements for display PROOFING purposes, then I will outline my workflow for Converting Colors to target destination spaces inside of Adobe Acrobat Pro. This workflow excludes PDF/X-4 standards because they appear to require an embedded Destination profile (Output Intent Profile).

Skip down page to my actual ACROBAT CONVERT COLORS WORKFLOW.
Review my PHOTOSHOP PDF BUG REPORT (if you package Photoshop .pdf you may want to review this paper).

MONITOR PROOFING | DEFAULT WORKING SPACES | CONVERT COLORS | EXPORT PDF (Print): BUG & FIX | PDF/X-4 | OBJECT INSPECTOR | CONCLUSION

ADOBE ACROBAT MONITOR PROOFING
how Acrobat Pro reacts to ICC Profiles & Untagged color

MOST COMMON ICC PROFILES EDUCATION

Photoshop .PDF (a weird bird)

I packaged my Photoshop PDF (DOWNLOAD) some time ago by opening the ten PDI .jpg reference images in Photoshop CS6 and Saving each one as a Photoshop .pdf — then opening one of the .pdf images in Acrobat 10.1 and dragging the other nine Photoshop .pdf documents into its Pages Panel — then I uploaded the saved PDF for my color-management tutorials.

I then discovered this first "Photoshop PDF" has a problem Converting Colors properly inside Acrobat — because of a likely conflict — but Acrobat displays it correctly and its screenshots (printscreens) are useful for this training tutorial.

Here is a screenshot of my Acrobat Preferences> Color Management> Working Spaces set to sRGB (set these settings if you are trying to follow this example):

If you open my original Photoshop PDF in Acrobat (with its Preferences> Color Management> Working Spaces set to "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" — it will display like the following example — (unless you have a wide-gamut monitor, in which case the Untagged set will probably have a more reddish appearance, but the Tagged set will display correctly because Acrobat's display is color managed like Photoshop).

Note: My screenshots contain embedded sRGB profiles so you can see exactly what I saw when I captured them (if your monitor is properly 'calibrated') — Firefox web browser (with its "Full Color Management" Value 1 enabled) is recommended for its proper Source> MonitorRGB display of Tagged RGB.

PHOTOSHOP PDF

ABOVE SCREENSHOT IS DISPLAYING CORRECTLY (as expected)

THE FIVE IMAGES IN THE LEFT COLUMN ARE IDENTICAL to the five images in the right column except ICC profiles have been embedded in the Tagged set, and the profiles were "stripped" or removed from the Untagged set.

LEFT SIDE: The left column containing the five Tagged images displays correctly (matching Photoshop) because Acrobat's color management module (CMM) "Adobe (ACE)" is reading their embedded ICC profiles and Converting (transforming, remapping) their colors to Monitor RGB for accurate, Photoshop-type proofing on the monitor.

RIGHT SIDE: The right column containing the five Untagged images displays predictably wrong because — in the absence of any embedded profiles — Acrobat is "Assuming" its default Working RGB profile: sRGB.

Note: Untagged sRGB is displaying correctly because Acrobat made the correct Assumption — sRGB is Acrobat's default Working RGB in this example (see my above Acrobat color settings).

My "Assume" terminology has the exact same effect as Photoshop's Edit> Assign Profile> Destination Space: (Acrobat's Working RGB profile).

All this can seem pretty complicated and tedious to read if you don't have a working knowledge of basic COLOR MANAGEMENT THEORY but it is really a simple concept, it's very predictable, and it's easy to observe what's happening to my colors in Acrobat.

This set of five pairs of Tagged and Untagged Getty-Photodisc PDI test .jpg images can be downloaded off gballard.net — including a copy of the WhackedRGB.icc profile. That link provides instructions for installing .icc & .icm profiles in both Windows and Mac OSX operating systems.

CHANGE ACROBAT'S WORKING RGB
observe the Untagged images

The following two examples will further prove my theory that Acrobat "Assumes" its default Working Profile for Untagged elements within a PDF.

I really like using ProPhoto and Whacked RGB images in my color-management tutorials because they are so obvious when the wrong profile is Assigned or Assumed or ignored or improperly Converted.

Set Acrobat Working RGB to "ProPhoto RGB" go to Acrobat> Preferences> Color Management for this screenshot and make the change (then Quit Acrobat and reopen my original PDF):

ACROBAT COLOR SETTINGS

You should now see huge color changes in the right column below — Acrobat is no longer Assuming sRGB on Untagged images because you changed its Working RGB to ProPhotoRGB — however — notice that the Untagged ProPhotoRGB now "matches" the Tagged set!

This is because Acrobat is making the correct Assumption, its default Working RGB is ProPhoto in this example).

ACROBAT DEFAULT COLOR DISPLAY

SEE AN EVEN MORE BIZARRE EXAMPLE

Set Acrobat Working RGB to "Whacked RGB" (you will have to have that ICC profile installed to select it) or take my word for it that my screen shots are good:

ACROBAT WORKING SPACE RGB

Then Quit Acrobat and reopen my original PDF — you should see this:

BAD COLORS IN ACROBAT

Notice only the Untagged Whacked RGB is displaying proper like the Tagged set because I changed Acrobat Working RGB to Whacked RGB in my Acrobat preferences (see above screenshot).

AGAIN: This is happening because Acrobat "Assumes" (Assigns) its default working profile to Untagged elements. This is an extremely important concept to understand if you need to visually PROOF a PDF on the monitor, and/or if you need to Convert colors in a PDF to a Print or Destination space because — if Acrobat uses or Assumes the wrong Souce profile — all color Conversions will be off, including Source> Monitor, Source> Destination, and Source> Print Space.

The point I am exhausting here is — unless you are embedding profiles in Acrobat PDF and using those profiles to Convert to Monitor RGB, Print Profiles, and Destination spaces — you are either ruining colors on a daily basis, or you are getting lucky that the Source profiles are the same or close enough to your default working spaces that you don't have to figure out what's happening.

CLASSIC BROKEN WORK FLOWS in the Real World:

The classic example of profile problems in the real world is the old-school print shop's clueless "color expert" who ignores our embedded profiles, because he says, he has "turned color management off" and "doesn't use profiles."

He tells us our color is "bad" because his print is bad, and he will try to "fix" our bad color and print another round of proofs.

Does this sound familiar?

What the cave man actually did was strip our document of its embedded profile(s) — he ignorantly Assumed-Assigned his own default profile(s) — then he takes a sledgehammer and starts beating up our color into his broken workflow....

ANOTHER CLASSIC MISTAKE WITH PDF:

Some moron downstream drags my .pdf into Photoshop and rasters all my vector logos and type into pixels and saves it as a .tif (or worse a .jpg) ... this just happened to me (again) last month after a pointed conversation about printing my Illustrator vector .pdf through a RIP and maintaining vector sharpness in the print (of course my logos and text printed like crap...).

HERE IS MY INDESIGN EXPORT PDF FROM SCRATCH
This is my second test PDF workflow (to rule out Photoshop .pdf bugs), and it represents my best guess for setting up a simple Photoshop-style Source> Destination profile conversion in Acrobat.

I created the below document in InDesign CS6 and placed my ten PDI images as .jpg files. These Getty-Photodisc reference jpegs are available in my PDI DOWNLOADS.

Below are my InDesign Color Settings (Working RGB is sRGB):

RECOMMENDED COLOR SETTINGS FOR INDESIGN

Below is my layout in InDesign — notice it is displaying correctly (InDesign has a color-managed display):

InDesign appears to Assume its default Working Space for Unmanaged images like Photshop and Acrobat (Untagged sRGB is displaying correctly).

INDESIGN LAYOUT

Below are my InDesign File> Export PDF settings (how to export a PDF):

Go to File> Export PDF> Format PDF (Print) and click Save.

(Below) General: Notice "Create tagged PDF" is checked so the Destination profile is embedded in my exported PDF.

GENERAL SETTINGS CREATE TAGGED PDF

COMPRESSION (below): Do Not Downsample, None — these are configured so my original pixels are not altered in any way.

COMPRESSION SETTINGS

OUTPUT (below): No Color Conversion, Include All Profiles — these are set so my colors are not Converted and my profiles remain untouched (my colors remain unaltered in any way):

PROFILE INCLUSION POLICIES (Beware!):

"Include Tagged Source Profiles" embeds ICC profiles in ONLY in Source elements or objects that have embedded profiles (no profile is included in Untagged elements) — there is a BUG with this setting (it strips InDesign's default working profile(s).

"Include All Profiles" (not selected in below screenshot) appears to Assume and embed Acrobat's Working profiles in Untagged elements which is undesired because there are four different Untagged color spaces being used in my example.

"Include All RGB and Tagged Source CMYK Profiles" (see screenshot below) — it works around the BUG, but introduces another anomaly (it also Assume and embed Acrobat's Working profiles in Untagged objects).

EXPORT ADOBE PDF

Below is the resulting exported ADOBE PDF in Acrobat — it is displaying correctly as expected (with sRGB set as Working RGB):

EXPORTED PDF

ANOTHER ACROBAT BUG?

I found and confirmed one very irritating anomaly in this InDesign> Export PDF (Print) "Include Tagged Source Profiles" process:

Acrobat's Object Inspector is reporting the Tagged sRGB image as Colorspace: "Device RGB" (Untagged) — its embedded profile was stripped during InDesign's export process despite its Profile Inclusion Policy was set to "Include Tagged Source Profiles":

ADOBE BUG

Changing Acrobat's default Working RGB proves Object Inspector is correct because it changes the formerly Tagged sRGB's appearance (which it shouldn't) — that clearly indicates the sRGB Profile has been stripped in InDesign's Export PDF... grrrr.

I re-examined the process several times — my InDesign document (download .zip folder) is indeed linking to the original Tagged sRGB .jpg — the other three Tagged images in my exported PDF are correctly showing their original embedded profiles in Object Inspector — the only clue is Acrobat's and InDesign's Working RGB were both set to sRGB.

One work-around this unwanted behavior is to InDesign> Edit> Assign Profiles (a profile that is not included in the Document). For example, I Assigned the Colormatch RGB profile and all my original embedded profiles were included, and my Untagged objects were left unchanged during Export (the Colormatch profile was stripped).

(Above) INDESIGN> EXPORT: PDF (Print) BUG SOLVED (sort of)...

The solution to InDesign> Export PDF (Print) stripping InDesign's working default profile(s) is to use Profile Inclusion Policy "Include All RGB and Tagged Source CMYK Profiles" (see screenshot below):

Include All RGB and Tagged Source CMYK Profiles

That setting, however, also tags all untagged objects with InDesign's working default profile(s) — SOO CONFUSING!!!

CONCLUSION ON THE BUGS:

If your business requires you to know whats's going on — run your own tests and verify what happened using Object Inspector because Adobe's "Profile Inclusion Policy" language doesn't do what they say they do in plain English.

And there doesn't seem to be any one setting that will both:

  1. Export all Tagged objects with their original embedded profile intact (unaltered), and
  2. Untagged objects with no embedd profile (unaltered).
PDF/X-4 standard
may be a more preferred print work flow...
After slugging the buggy and confusing Photoshop PDF and InDesign Print workflows, I have concluded Adobe InDesign's PDF/X-4:2008 preset is probably a better print workflow for some users because it ensures all Tagged objects are properly Converted to a Destination profile and tagged with the embedded profile (if that's what you want to happen).

The biggest problems I see with Adobe InDesign's PDF/X-4:2008 standard are:

  • It's Profile Inclusion Policy seems to always REQUIRE an Output profile be Assigned to Untagged objects and embedded.
  • Untagged elements are Assumed to be in InDesign's Working Spaces, and they are Converted to the Destination space — this is fine if the object(s) is in InDesign's Working Space, but a disaster if it/they are not (as clearly evident in my PDI test .indd document).

I am including Adobe InDesign's PDF/X-4:2008 Preset dialog below... see my previous screenshots for recommended General, Compression and Output settings... do your own Export tests and use Acrobat's Object Inspector and your monitor to verify what's happening....

Adobe InDesign's PDF/X-4:2008 Preset

OBJECT INSPECTOR
How to prove Acrobat is or is not embedding the proper ICC profiles in your PDF

To confirm or check which ColorSpaces (ICC Profiles) a PDF is using:

  1. Open your PDF in Acrobat Pro;
  2. Go to: View> Tools> Print Production> Output Preview> Preview: Object Inspector;
  3. Click on the image or element you want to check;
  4. Read the results in Filled Path: Image> Color Space.

Tagged elements will likely read "ICCBased" and note the profile.
Untagged elements will likely read: "Device" RGB, CMYK or Gray.

SEE ACROBAT X SCREENSHOT BELOW:

IMAGE INSPECTOR HOW TO VERIFY ICC PROFILES IN ADOBE ACROBAT

HOW TO CONVERT COLORS IN ACROBAT
the work flow:
Now that I have my new PDF test file packaged (download my second PDF), I will open it in Acrobat Pro and use Acrobat's Convert Colors function to Convert everything to a single Destination Profile (my original goal).

Remember, in this new PDF — the four Tagged images in the left column are IDENTICAL to the four Untagged images in the right column except ICC profiles are embedded in the left set, and the right set was saved without profiles (each as noted).

I included ProPhoto RGB and Whacked RGB because they will be more obvious if there are any profile issues. I dropped Apple RGB (1.8 gamma) from this tutorial.

Below are my Acrobat Color Management settings (Working Spaces RGB is sRGB):

ACROBAT COLOR MANAGEMENT PREFERENCES

Below is my Convert Color dialog:

In Acrobat: View> Tools> Print Production: Convert Colors

Matching Criteria> Color Type:

  1. "Calibrated RGB" appears to Convert only objects (elements) with embedded profiles, (Untagged or Device objects are left untouched, Untagged).
  2. "Any Color Space" appears to Convert and correctly tag Tagged objects with the new Destination profile, (Untagged or Device objects are Assigned the Conversion Profile and incorrectly tagged as such).

Convert Command: Convert to Profile
Conversion Profile (destination space): I used sRGB
Rendering Intent: I used Perceptual

REMEMBER: My PDF contains four Tagged images, each with its own unique embedded ICC profile — the trick here is to Convert all four Tagged images to one destination profile (sRGB) and have them display correctly in the Converted PDF.

I am not going to worry about the confused mixed bag of Untagged RGB objects in my PDF because there is no way I can think of to properly Convert them in this procedure.

ACROBAT CONVERT COLORS SETTINGS

CONCLUSION

Below screenshot is the Exported PDF (Print) opened in Acrobat WITH CONVERTED COLORS to sRGB Conversion Profile (destination profile) — sRGB profile is embedded — the Tagged set is displaying correctly! The Untagged set is displaying all over the place as expected.

WHAT HAPPENED USING MY ABOVE CONVERT COLORS SETTING?

The Tagged images were each properly Converted to sRGB and saved with that color space embedded. Acrobat is still displaying them exactly like Photoshop does (Source> Monitor RGB).

The Untagged images were unaltered so (they remain unchanged from when they were last saved Untagged in Photoshop).

This can be confirmed using Acrobat Pro's Image Inspector.

The Untagged set demonstrates the importance of embedding profiles in documents because Acrobat (like Photoshop) bases its color Conversion processes on the "Assumption" Untagged elements are in its default Working Spaces (sRGB in my example).

Further, it is easy to observe here how mismatched Untagged colors are ruined on the display, and most likely in any ICC profile-based Conversion process, including Source Space> Print Space, Source Space> Destination Profile, Source Space> Monitor RGB.

The Untagged sRGB looks correct below because Acrobat made the correct Assumption (sRGB is Acrobat's default profile in this example).

Profiles are very predictable when you understand what's going on:

FINAL CONVERTED PDF

The original colors are still contained in the above Untagged examples, but we need to Assign or Assume the correct profile to pop them back — for example — if you opened the above screenshot in Photoshop, and Edit> Assign Profile: Whacked RGB (it would restore the proper color in that whacked blue image). CLICK HERE to popup a dramatic screenshot if you don't believe me.

BOTTOM LINE:

Exactly like Photoshop, Acrobat Pro cannot accurately display (Convert, transform or re-map source colors to destination profiles, including print spaces) unless:

  1. An embedded Source profile is used, or
  2. the correct Source profile is (Assigned or) Assumed by default.

If your PDF contains a mixed bag of Untagged elements — and they do not match Acrobat's user-set Working Spaces — then your PDF cannot be displayed and/or Converted to other ICC profiles accurately, including printing profiles.

"It is the theory that decides what we can observe."
- Albert Einstein

COLOR MANAGEMENT IN PHOTOSHOP CREATIVE SUITES

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