For color management to work, you
must profile your devices or use an ICC profile created by the device’s
manufacturer.
- Capture devices
-
Profiling is not critical for capture devices such as digital cameras
or scanners. You may want to profile a scanner, however, if you
want to accurately reproduce the colors in scanned transparencies,
and reduce your color correction workload in Photoshop Elements.
- Monitors
-
Calibrating and profiling your monitor is important. If you
are using a laptop or other LCD monitor, you can use the profile
provided by the manufacturer. If you own a colorimeter and corresponding
software to create profiles, you can use those profiles in Photoshop Elements.
- Printers
-
Profiling your inkjet printer will generally give you better
results, though you can make excellent prints without a printer
profile by using the controls in your printer driver. Many printer
manufacturers provide ICC printer profiles on their websites. You
need a separate profile for each printer, ink, and type of paper.
You can also have profiles made for your favorite combination of ink
and paper.
When you work on a photo and save it, Photoshop Elements can embed (tag) an ICC profile
that reflects the colors on your computer monitor or the device
that produced it. Embedding profiles with an image makes its color
portable, so that different devices can translate its color values.
For example, if you send the photo to your inkjet printer, the color
management system reads the embedded profile and translates the
color data using the printer’s profile. Your printer can then use the
translated color data to accurately translate its color into the
selected media.