Setting Up the Creative Suite with the Same Color Management Settings

On a typical day, I'll work in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign at one point or another. Many times, I'm saving files from one program and opening them in another. One of the things that always bugged me was color management settings throughout all of the programs. I had to go in and manually set each one of them. If I didn't, I'd risk the colors looking different in each program. When CS2 came out, I was very relieved that they consolidated color management throughout the Suite into one place.

Synchronizing Color Management Settings

Step One

Open Adobe Bridge. Choose Edit>Creative Suite Color Settings or press Command-Shift-K (PC: Control-Shift-K) to open the Suite Color Settings dialog. By default, the Creative Suite color settings are synchronized as displayed in this dialog.

Turbo Boost

The best way to keep all of your Creative Suite applications up to date without spending a lot of time downloading updates is to choose Help>Updates in Bridge. Turn on automatic updates so you don't ever have to worry about it again.

Step Two

To see more color setting profiles, turn on the Show Expanded List of Color Settings Files checkbox at the bottom of the dialog. To change your color settings for all Creative Suite applications, just click the setting you want in the list, and then click the Apply button.

Step Three

The Creative Suite applications are now synchronized using the color setting you specified. You can always check your settings by choosing Edit>Creative Suite Color Settings in Bridge or by choosing Bridge Center in the Favorites palette. You'll see the current synchronization state at the bottom of the window.

Turbo Boost

To quickly rate an image in Bridge, select the image then press Command-05 (PC: Control-05). Zero means no rating and pressing any number between 1 and 5 will assign that many stars to the image.

Specifying a Specific Color Management Setting for One Program

Step One

In Photoshop, choose Edit>Color Settings or press Command-Shift-K (PC: Control-Shift-K). This opens the Color Settings dialog. The first thing you'll see is the same icon you saw in Bridge's Suite Color Settings dialog letting you know that the color settings are synchronized.

Step Two

Change the Settings option to something different than it is now. In my example, I'm changing it from North America General Purpose 2 to North America Prepress 2.

Turbo Boost

Adobe introduced a new service in CS2 called Adobe Stock Photos. Here you can search for stock photos and even download comps right from within Bridge. Just click Adobe Stock Photos in the Favorites palette.

Step Three

As soon as you do this, the icon at the top will change to let you know that the color settings are no longer synchronized for consistent color.

Step Four

To resynchronize the color settings in the Creative Suite, either go through Photoshop's Color Settings dialog and change the color setting to the setting the rest of the Creative Suite uses or see the previous Synchronizing Color Management Settings tutorial.

Turbo Boost

When you use Adobe Stock Photos, you can view your downloaded comps by clicking Downloaded Comps in the Favorites palette.