Setting the Color Management Options

The ACDSee color management options help reduce color matching problems between devices, such as your computer, your monitor, and printers. ACDSee automatically detects the color profile assigned to your monitor, (if setup correctly within your operating system). It is recommended that you regularly profile your monitor with color management hardware and software.

Before changing the color management settings, make sure you have accurate color profiles for each of the devices that you plan to use. You can obtain color profiles from device manufacturers if the profiles were not included in the device's software, or from the professional printers.

Color management can be a complex process. If you are not familiar with color management systems, it is recommended that you accept the default color management settings in ACDSee.

To Set the Color Management Options:

  1. In any mode, click Tools | Options.
  2. In the Options dialog box, click Color Management.
  3. On the Color Management page, set or change any of the options as described below.
  4. Click OK to accept your changes and return to ACDSee.

Color Management Options

Enable

Enable Color Management

Activates the color management system in ACDSee and the fields in this dialog box.

Apply to thumbnails

Activates color management for thumbnails.

Color Management Engine

Select from the drop-down list of color management engines.

Input

Default Input Profile

Specifies the default color profile to use when the image is not tagged with an ICC profile.

Profile Details

Displays the details for all color profiles currently stored on your computer. Scroll down to find the profile for a specific color space, such as sRGB.

Soft Proofing

Enable Soft Proofing

Allows you to choose from a selection of device profiles you want your monitor to simulate for proofing. You can choose your printer profile to be the emulated device and then preview what the output from your printer would look like on your monitor (soft proofing).

Emulated Device Profile

Choose the device to be emulated.

Rendering Intent

A strategy for handling situations where not all colors will fit in the output device's color space. Strategy options consist of:

  • Perceptual: Remaps colors outside of the target color space by compressing all colors for the entire image. Colors may become less saturated as everything condenses towards neutral and away from the saturated colors at the edges of the target color space.
  • Saturation: Preserves the saturation of colors, potentially at the cost of hue and lightness. This intent is most valuable for business applications, such as graphics, where images need to be vibrant and contrast distinctly from one another.
  • Relative Colorimetric: Maps all out-of-gamut colors to the closest in-gamut color. Colors that fall outside the range of what the output device can render are adjusted to the closest color the device is capable of displaying.
  • Absolute Colorimetric: Colors that fall outside the range of what the output device can render are adjusted to the closest color that can be rendered. However, the white point does not move, which may result in the distance of the colors to the white point changing.
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In View, Develop, and Edit Mode, the shortcut [ toggles Soft Proofing on and off.

Some Soft Proofing menu items are also available through View, Develop, and Edit Mode. Under View | Soft Proofing, select your Rendering Intent or whether to enable Soft Proofing.