Learn how to assign and convert profile in this Adobe Photoshop CS2 Advanced training video.


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Video Transcription

Now, I was telling you that, I have assigned keyboard shortcuts to changing color profiles that are embedded inside of an image. So let's take a look at why that might be useful. Notice, here this Prologue file.jpg, inside the title bar it says I am viewing it at 50%, that may be different then the view size you are looking at you maybe seeing 60-70% or even a 100% depending on the size of your monitor. But it should say RGB/8 which means it's RGB image, 8 bits of data per channel inside this specific image. We will be delving more into that inside Lesson 01 and right next to it, at the end of eight here, you will see an asterisk and that's telling you that you are working in a different color space. You are working inside the Adobe RGB color space because you just set that up a moment ago. But this image has sRGB color space color profile embedded into it. Probably, what we would like to do is bring this image into the same color space that we are working in. In other words, we want to convert it to the sRGB space to the Adobe RGB space. We can do that in one of two ways. If I go to the Edit Menu, you can see right there, there are my commands, Assign Profile and Convert to Profile, Shift+F1 and Shift+F2. Now, I use these commands on a very regular basis and I imagine you do as well or will do so as well, when you finish up with this series. But, we have two choices, so if adjust one to assign the new profile, the new Adobe RGB profile to this image, I would choose the Assign Profile command. So, I will go ahead and choose this for now, so, Shift+F1 if you prefer to bring up the Assign Profile dialog box right here and I have got Preview turned on so that we can see the results of my modification. I think, will move this up a little bit here. Right now the profile set to SRGB. Well, I could go ahead and say let's do the working RGB space, which is Adobe RGB and as soon as I click on this option watch the image, keep your eye on the image. Watch how it brightens up, ever so slightly. So we see the saturation values inside the flesh tones brighten up and we also see those flesh tones trend a little bit from the yellower space into the red. So, we see them shift a little bit and basically warm up a little bit inside the Adobe RGB space. Now, if you like that, if you like what you are seeing here, if you like the way the colors are getting brighter, more vivid and also a little bit warmer, then this is a perfectly acceptable way to work. But let me tell you what's going on. When you choose Assign Profile, you do not change a single color inside the image file, not a single pixel changes. Instead, the way Photoshop is displaying those pixels on screen changes. So, if you are okay with the screen display changing and you don't want to change the colors inside the files, this is the way you go. You go ahead and choose Assign Profile as opposed to Convert to Profile. So, this is one way to work. If you like this brightening that's great, if you don't like the brightening effect though and I don't -- n case of this image, I want to keep the colors exactly the same on screen. I am going to go ahead and click Cancel and instead, I am going to go to the Edit Menu and I am going to choose the Convert to Profile command or I could press Shift+F2 if I prefer. And that will bring up this dialog box right here, go ahead and move it down just a little bit, so that we can see the preview is turned on. Right now it's going to convert from the source space sRGB to the destination space of CMYK, to the working CMYK space. So, in other words it's going to convert it from an RGB image to a CMYK image, I don't want that. And I will change this from CMYK, I could change it to working RGB by choosing this command right here, which gets me the Adobe RGB space or I could choose adobe RGB down here, either one is going to work for me, but I do want to get it into that working RGB space and notice that we don't see the color shift on screen. So, I see no color shifting whatsoever and that's because Photoshop is changing the colors of the image. Now, I know that's confusing. You don't see a change because a change is occurring and that's because these colors, the converted colors, are the ones that display the same way in RGB, in the working RGB space as the colors used to display inside SRGB. So, if you want to keep your colors the same in the new space our conversion has to occur but it's a good conversion so I wouldn't worry about it. This just goes ahead and keeps your colors the same way on screen and make sure that you are working in the better, larger Adobe RGB color space. Alright, so you should have Preview turned on and you should not see a change on screen then go ahead and click OK in order to accept that modification. So, a couple of different ways to convert images from one color space to another inside Photoshop CS2.