Soft Proofing Images for the Web

Note

Before starting this exercise, make sure you've configured the Color Settings file in Photoshop according to the exercise in Chapter 5.

Here's how to soft proof a color image for the Web.

1.	Launch Adobe Photoshop CS2.
2.	Choose File > Open and then navigate to and open the file tulips.jpg, located in Windows XP Color Management Project Files > Chapter 10.
3.	Choose View > Proof Setup > Custom. The Customize Proof Condition dialog box appears. Note If you have set Photoshop's RGB working space to a profile other than Adobe RGB (1998), the Photoshop Embedded Profile Mismatch dialog box will appear when you open the file. Select the Convert Document's Colors to the Working Space option and click OK. Figure 10.3.
4.	From the Device to Simulate drop-down menu, choose sRGB. Figure 10.4.
5.	Select the Preserve RGB Numbers check box. Figure 10.5. This option instructs Photoshop to simulate the appearance of the image without converting colors from the document space to the proof-profile space. It simulates color shifts that can occur when the image's color values are interpreted using the proof profile instead of the document profile. Selecting the Preserve RGB Numbers option disables all other options in the dialog box, and the rendering intent defaults to the Perceptual setting. Figure 10.6.
6.	Click OK to see the soft proof. You can also toggle the Preview check box to see the effect. Photoshop changes the display name of the image, shown in the title bar, to reflect the proof. By toggling the soft proof on and off (by pressing Ctrl+Y), you can see the effects of the soft proof. Figure 10.7. In the case of the tulips.jpg image, the colors are less saturated and the image has less contrast overall because of the smaller color space of the sRGB profile.

You can produce soft proofs of illustrations and page layouts using the Customize Proof Condition dialog box in Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Professional, too.