Help with Photoshop Settings

I was wondering what this Colormetric means and should I ever change it.

Only two rendering intents make sense when printing photos - Relative Colorimetric and Perceptual.

Relative Colorimetric prints all in gamut colours accurately, and slides out of gamut colours to the nearest colour on the boundary of the gamut. That can lead to posterisation, but also to a more accurate print.

Perceptual transforms the whole colour space somewhat - exactly by how much is rather complicated, but it's best thought of as a compression of the gamut in order that most colours will appear without gamut clipping and the resulting posterisation. The result is that all colours will shift slightly, but there'll be a much lower risk of posterisation.


At least one reference recommends using Perceptual as your standard option, and Relative Colorimetric if you know all colours are within the printer's gamut. This article talks about the differences between these two rendering intents in more detail.


However, all this assumes that you're printing correctly using profiles. It's very rare that you'd want Adobe RGB set as a printer profile. I have one case on my setup where that is valid - my new HP Color LaserJet 3800dtn can be configured to take Adobe RGB data in the driver, and not apply any other transformations. That's how I drive this printer from Photoshop. I'd prefer it if HP released ICC profiles, and I will be on at them about this - it doesn't help that my printer came without a CD-ROM and I had to download the drivers, so I may be missing something, though HP don't have any ICC profiles to download for this model on their web site.

I don't regard the LaserJet as a photo quality printer, nor would I go to HP for a printer that I wanted primarily for photo work. However, for a colour laser, the results are excellent. The gamut is so much wider than my old and ailing Color LaserJet 2500n; HP's "Colorsphere" technology really does seem to work.


Normally, you get the appropriate profile for your printer, ink and paper combination, turn off all color management options in the printer driver, and then use this option in Photoshop with the correct profile selected. This typically comes from the manufacturer (it may be shipped with the driver) if you use printer manufacturer's paper and inks, and from the paper manufacturer if you use third party paper and printer manufacturer's inks.

If you're using third party inks, you may be able to get profiles from the ink manufacturer for some papers - or it may be a case of having your own profile made. Having a custom profile made will always be the most accurate option.


Information on how to configure Epson drivers to let Photoshop do the colour management is here and for Canon drivers go here.

David

I soft proof every job before printing. That includes checking rendering intent. Some images are better in perceptual, some better in relative colormetric. Once in awhile absolute colormetric provides the best colors. The only one I haven't used is saturation. The profile you are printing to will make a difference. There is no one setting for every print.