*** From the Archives ***
This article is from November 26, 2008, and is no longer current.
Can You Turn Off Color Management?
E. wrote:
My printer tells me that my “CMS” is on and I need to shut it off. What is it and where is it?
I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but there’s a reasonable chance your printer is a bonehead. It’s possible that they have a point (I’m willing to keep an open mind), but unlikely.
A “CMS” can mean either a “content management system” or a “color management system.” The former is primarily used for assets or database-driven publishing (such as our very own WordPress blog here). The latter is used for getting more consistent color from original to screen to proof to output. I’m guessing that he or she means the latter.
First of all, I need to make one thing really clear here: There is no way to turn off the color management system. In any program. Period. If you import a CMYK image into InDesign (or Word, for that matter), it needs to display it on screen. Your screen is an RGB device. Therefore, it must “manage” the color to convert it to RGB. If you import an RGB image and try to print it, it needs to be converted to CMYK somewhere along the line. That’s color management.
So there is no way to turn it off. There are only ways to do it smart or stupid. “Stupid” means having your software do it blindly, without you having any input into “which RGB” and “which CMYK” and how do you want to deal with out-of-gamut colors (colors that cannot be represented in the color space you’re converting to).
“Smart” means that your software lets you provide input, and you pay attention and give it some guidance.
Turning CMS “off” (which, in InDesign’s case, probably means opening Edit > Color Settings, and choosing “Emulate InDesign 2.0 CMS Off” from the Settings pop-up menu) means “I’m a bonehead ostrich and if I stick my head in this hole and believe hard enough that color management doesn’t exist, then maybe it’ll just go away.”
There is no escaping color management. It will happen with or without you. If you want good color, you’ll learn a little bit about color management and how to make little tweaks that can give you big results. If you don’t care about color quality, and you don’t mind being roadkill, then “Off” may be a good choice for you.
That said — now that I’ve gotten that off my chest — there is one other possible explanation for “off”: They want you to use Preserve Numbers. I’ve written about that feature in a couple of places, such as making good proofs, and in this comment. I guess Preserve Numbers is kind of like “turn it off” for CMYK images. For example, if you import a CMYK image or you have 100% black text, and you don’t want it to get converted to some other CMYK or four-color-black text… It’s a very reasonable feature and it’s what most people should be using when printing or exporting PDFs from InDesign.
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Hi David,
While I actually agree with what you wrote, there is actually a very good reason for turning color management off (or whatever passes for “off”), that applies to us almost every day. (Although I’m sure this has nothing to do with the request you wrote about…)
One of our printers is a RISO GR3770 digital duplicator. It’s connected with a SC7700 PS3 interface. This dinosaur (which has served us very well for close to ten years) does not have a proper profile, and as far as I can tell, can not use one. When printing with color management “on” — no matter what settings are used, blacks are printed at about 95% gray. This is a sure way to pixelate any text or line art. The only way we have been able to get around this, is by enabling “Emulate Off”.
Yes, preserve is good. The rest of it… well it seems to cause a lot more problems then it has ever cured in our workflow. Off-color backgrounds around transparent items spring to mind as the classic example. (What is the color of two CMS systems fighting, my son?)
The printers we have to work with probably still knap their press plates by hand though. It’s only in the last year that they finally dropped the individual pages requirement when sending PDFs…
o_O
very interesting article.
it is my understanding though, that indesign creates a low-res preview of any image file for screen viewing purposes, and uses a shortcut to the original file of any image placed in a document for output (thus keeping document filesize down, rather than having huge files embedded into documents, making the prgram slow(er) and clunky(er)). when you export for print, indesign embeds the original image file in the final pdf and only adds colour management if instructed to to do so at the output stage.
for instance, i design a magazine printed on newspaper stock. when i applied my printers CMYK colour profiles to account for dot gain etc. in indesign, 100% black text would convert to CMYK, even with preserve numbers selected. But when i exported a pdf with the colour output set to ‘leave unchanged’ we got 100% black text, but the images were too dark.
The solution was to apply the CMYK colour profile from the printers to the images in photoshop, and then export pdfs from indesign with the colour settings unchanged. This now results in files perfectly formatted for the printer.
the conclusion i have drawn from this experience is that, although colour management will always affect on-screen viewing, it is possible to bypass it when outputting print files and it will seem to preserve numbers by default.
Hi Davide,
every day I hear some misunderstanding like this… This article is a very good point.
Bye
@heavyboots: I don’t think the color management system has anything to do with the transparency issues you’re describing. See this link instead.
@david: If you choose Convert to Destination (Preserve Numbers) in the Export PDF dialog box, and you choose a CMYK destination profile, then color swatches defined as CMYK and imported CMYK images should not be converted. If you were seeing numbers changing in those instances, then something else weird is going on.
hi
thanks to inform such a informative point.
I have a problem printing jobs in USA. I’m polish dtp operator but some of my jobs are printing in USA. I use north american prepress color settings in CS3 but my job print too saturated and too so too dark. I have no theese problem when I print in Poland. Could somebody help me?:)
Hi David,
Can I turn off everything that is managed in all industries, not just color accuracy? Well, my point is the best thing about color management, ColorSync, and ICC profiles is that they require the user to think and to manage. I can’t believe anyone would want anarchy. Perhaps turning off color management simply means letting some one else, using their own system, do the color management of a document. I hope so.
I’m amazed to learn that Adobe is betraying those that want and NEED to turn off color management in their Adobe programs. Ironically, Adobe is aware of how very crucial it is to be able to turn off color management in all their products, and to allow the printer to determine colors when printing.
In their own words regarding InDesign CS4, Adobe says: “This method is especially convenient when printing to inkjet photo printers, because each combination of paper type, printing resolution, and additional printing parameters (such as high-speed printing) requires a different profile. Most new inkjet photo printers come with fairly accurate profiles built into the driver, so letting the printer select the right profile saves time and alleviates mistakes.”
This quote from Adobe perfectly explains why I HAVE to be able to turn off color management and color handling in ALL my Adobe products (including Photoshop AND INDESIGN) and HAVE to also be able to TURN OFF “color handling” in the PRINT DIALOGS. Adobe clearly understands my need. And yet they have chosen to thumb their nose at me, and DE-GRADE THEIR OWN SOFTWARE.
More specifically, despite supposedly being able to turn off color management in the “Colour Settings,” it turns out that is just a fake off switch. In the PRINT DIALOG, the only “Option” in the “Colour Management” “Options” area is to “Let InDesign Determine Colours.” And mousing over the little “Information” button just to the right, produces a reminder to “Remember to disable colour management in the printer driver dialog box.”
To which I say, I HAVE to be able to manage colour through my printer dialog for all the reasons ADOBE STATES IN THE ABOVE QUOTE (and more), but they are PREVENTING IT by refusing to relinquish control of color in the print dialog.
In other words, I HAVE to be able to TURN off “Colour Handling” in the InDesign print dialog AND THEY WON’T LET ME.
You are betraying me and betraying yourself by blocking my attempts to print the way I have to be able to print in order to get a decent print of my artwork.
BOTTOM LINE: I HAVE to be able to turn off the print dialog’s option to “Let InDesign Determine Colours” in order to print my artwork on my various inkjet printers and specialty papers with my various settings and hand-built profiles. And since Adobe won’t allow me to do that, I can’t use InDesign.
The most important reason to turn it off completely!!!
WEB AND VIDEO
For web – when you’re working on a file, and it looks great, and then you save it to a jpeg, then open it in preview (mac) or any web browser – the colors are WAY OFF. I understand the purpose of color management in a completely RGB scenario, but sometime it just needs to be off. If you’re not converting from RGB to CMYK or back, you don’t need color management at all. On the web, everyone’s screen will look different, even if their browser supports color management – the problem is that consumer computers are not calibrated at all.
For video: Adobe’s color management is not completely symetrical. so lets say I’m editing something in final cut pro. I take a small segment of video into after effects to add a special effect (one that does not affect most of the shot). lets say i’m just compositing something in in the background. now when I render – if I have any color management on in AE, the video I bring back into FCP has changed color. even though it is more slight here than saving a jpeg from photoshop – it’s noticeable when you play from the source clip and cut to the composited clip. although there actually is a checkbox to completely disable color management in AE called “preserve rgb” which preserves the actual pixel values of pixels that have not been changed at all.
I am joining this discussion late in the game but I think I have something to offer, particularly those using Macs.
I have been trying to print some cards that were laid out in ID CS3 with images Placed from PS CS5 and have never been able to get even close to acceptable correspondence in the colors. One image will be a green shift, another a red shift and way too light, etc.
I tried all of the bitmap and other options listed above without result (i.e. literally no change), but it turns out the culprit was in the “Color Matching” menu in the Printer Driver window. I found I had to set it to Epson Color Controls to get the colors to match. I believe that if I did not do this, but used the ColorSync selection instead, that the Turn Color Management Off (in the ID print job window) did not actually do the job.
When that is done, the images match the images printed with PhotoShop perfectly, the first time ever.
Note that in most of the use of the PhotoShop printing routines this ColorMatching option is grayed out, no selection is necessary, so I was largely ignoring it. The default selection in my CS3 copy of ID is ColorSync.
I find this to work on both my Epson 7880 and my Epson 3880 printers, and I am using OS X 10.5.8. What the newer versions of InDesign would be like I cannot say.
Each document has a blend space, which you can control in the Edit > Transparency Blend Space submenu. You should set this to your final output. If your document is destined for the screen or an inkjet printer (or perhaps even a laser printer output), then RGB is likely the best choice. If you’re printing to a press, then choose CMYK. !!!!!