List of Color Management Myths

List of Color Management Myths

This is a partial list of common misconceptions about color management.

Myth #1: Color Management is not useful in CMYK-only workflows

Myth #2: There is some internal Lab/Color reference that the output of printers is compared to when profiling.

Myth #3: The gamut of RGB is larger than CMYK.

Myth #4: A profile is for calibration

Myth #5: 5000K on a monitor is the same as 5000K in a light booth.

Myth #6: You need to be a color scientist to use color management

Myth #7: Setup Photoshop with your monitor profile as the working space.

Myth #8: Use perceptual intent for all Photographic-style images

Myth #9: The Saturation rendering intent sucks.

Myth #10: Profile Rot or "A good profile gone bad"

Myth #11: Printing a profiling target is a good way to evaluate a profile.

Myth #12: CMYKLcLm printers are 6 color.

Myth #13: Look at a print closely to see the color better.

Myth #14: CRT Brightness & Contrast knobs control Brightness and Contrast.

Myth #15: LCD brightness IS brightness which means it's not the same as a CRT.

Myth #16: Two 5000K bulbs will match.

Myth #17: D50 bulbs are available.

Myth #18: The "Preserve Color Numbers" checkbox in Photoshop's proof setup doesn't matter much.

Myth #19: You need a RIP for your printer if you want to proof.

Myth #20: Adobe Gamma is pretty close to what you can get from an instrument calibration.

Myth #21: There are perceptual rendering intents available when converting from scanner/camera->workspace or workspace->workspace.

Myth #22: The a, b axis of Lab are red/green and blue/yellow.

Myth #23: Photoshop's color setting dialog lets you edit an ICC CMYK profile.

Myth #24: Working space selection in Photoshop affects profile building.

Myth #25: Device link profiles are limited, hard-coded versions of normal ICC transforms and are therefore redundant, inflexible and are to be avoided.

Myth #26: Graphing profiles to see their gamut gives pretty much the same results in the different tools that are available.

Myth #27: Why would anyone ever want to choose a working space that is larger than you can print?

Myth #28: The PowerBook G4 displays 16.7 million colors (or any display, for that matter).

Myth #29: The more patches on the printer target, the better the resulting profile.

Myth #30: If your RIP doesn't allow total ink limiting, just limit each channel.

Myth #31: When setting up a RIP for proofing, you should match density and dot gain of the inkjet to the press.

Myth #32: Relative Colorimetric intent means no color shift.

Myth #33: The new SWOP guide (version 10) contains an effective summary of color management.

G7 Myths: G7 Myths.

Myth #35: Wide gamut monitors are the best! Everybody should have one.

Myth #36: A wide gamut monitor will show me all the colors my printer can print.

Myth #37: Lab is perceptually uniform

Myth #38: Delta E 2000 is not a good equation to choose; I've heard that xxx is better.

Myth #39: Curve3 will make my printer print GRACoL.

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