Colour management
PhotoCraft colour management and soft proofing
Start with the destination’s requirements. A profile, a colour mode, a bit depth and a screen preview describe different parts of the workflow.
Record the document’s colour context
PhotoCraft’s official product page describes multiple colour modes and bit depths, ICC colour management and soft proofing. Inspect the properties your installed build exposes for the document you are editing.
Record its dimensions, colour mode, bit depth and embedded profile if available. For a print handoff, ask the printer or recipient for the intended profile and file requirements. An arbitrary CMYK conversion is not a substitute for those specifications.
Distinguish assigning from converting
Assigning a profile changes how existing colour values are interpreted. Converting to another profile changes values to represent colours in a different colour space. These are different operations; keep a copy before either one.
Use the current documented controls when available and compare the result. Do not remove an embedded profile just to make a preview look familiar. For web images, confirm the destination’s accepted colour conventions and export behaviour.
Bit depth affects the precision available in the document. Changing it late in a workflow cannot recover detail already lost in an earlier lower-precision or clipped result.
Treat soft proofing as a preview
A soft proof previews an output condition using a chosen profile; it does not physically test a print. Display calibration, output settings and the chosen profile all matter. Use a physical proof when a print-critical decision requires it.
- Keep an editable master with known colour settings.
- Apply only the destination-specific conversion required for an output copy.
- Export to the agreed format and inspect the actual file and its profile.
- Check it in a suitable colour-managed destination application.
- Confirm the recipient’s requirements before final delivery.
For layered exchange, pair these checks with the PSD saving workflow. This site does not claim to have validated colour-critical output from every build.
Official sources: PhotoCraft product page (opens a new tab) · File-format assessment (opens a new tab) · Feature parity assessment (opens a new tab).