Page 125 - Graphic Design and Print Production Fundamentals

Graphic Design 113
Colour management software used to be required to preview the results of applying a device link.
With the last few versions of Adobe Photoshop, a device link option has been added to the advanced
dialog window of the Color Conversion menu, making device link previewing much more accessible.
Currently, Photoshop only supports CMYK to CMYK device links. It does not support RGB to CMYK
device links. Another alternative for viewing the results of applying a device link is to generate a virtual
proof (VPS) in Kodak Prinergy with the device link specified. For details, see section 4.11 in this chapter.

With this extraordinary level of control, why don’t we use device links for every colour conversion?
The truth is, that with our gain in managing the colour conversion process, we sacrifice an even greater
degree of flexibility. The premise of colour management and the use of profiles is that we do not have
to generate a unique profile for each pairing of devices. With the power of the PCS gateway to provide
the device independent colour description, we only need a single profile for each colour condition of a
device and any two profiles can be positioned on either side of the PCS to provide a pathway for the
colour conversion.

Where it does make sense to go to the extra trouble of generating a device link profile is a situation
where a specific pairing of two devices is used over and over again, such as a proofer for a particular
press condition, or to keep two presses in a shop matched for their colour output.
If we process an image from RGB to CMYK at the beginning of our production process, we gain the
stability of having the image in our known CMYK space, but we surrender the flexibility of converting
to the optimal CMYK space at final output. For final stage or late-binding conversion, we are dependent
on the RIP environment for managing the calculations between the profile pair (see Section 5.2). A
device link provides additional security in the conversion process by reducing the variability that can
come with the processing application input that is part of a profile pair transformation.