Color Settings requirements for images
ICC Printing with the Hewlett Packard Designjet 30/130 series printers in Adobe Photoshop + Apple OsX
The Driver 2.4 and upwards is a solid performer for color photographic reproduction. User scalable from simple quick printing to detailed professional workflow optimization. Often questioned if a RIP is needed to produce quality prints, the answer is the driver will do for image printing of full sized images. Processing can be done through the driver in user selectable color paths, including ICC enabled workflow. Users can select the workflow that best suits them. The new driver not only is easily managed but also has a full no color management option for creating custom profiles or simply using Photoshop to pre-convert the colors for streamlined custom profiles for various papers including third party media.
Color Settings requirements for images
Since Photoshop 6 all images are color managed upon opening. Even when there is no profile tagged an assumed default color description will be used such as the working space. Images may or may have a profile embedded from sources such as scanners or cameras. If the image has an embedded profile , then that profile will describe the meaning of color in the image. If the image doesn't have a profile then you have to assume a profile or accept the appearance in the default working space. Scanner software often bring images into Photoshop even though color managed in the plug-in doesn't tag the profile. If the scanning software is already set up to convert the document to the working space then you can safely assume the default working space. Most other images coming in from cameras or the web or other rgb capture device will be formatted to fit into a monitor color space known as sRGB. It is the most widespread rgb color space that groups most consumer equipment and ensures a communal approach to keeping color consistent between devices.
Those seeking more potential from their devices can format their captures into a working space with a larger gamut such as Adobe RGB (1998) or very large such as Kodak ProPhoto RGB. Most mid range scanners can record into a number of ICC working spaces including of course Adobe RGB.
You'll want to set your Color Settings in Photoshop to a localized preset which then can be customized from it's default preset. Localized means the regional preferences that are well adapted for your printing standards. They are U.S. Prepress, Europe, and Japan Prepress. These give a quality default expected publication workflow setting. Customizing this is easily done by modifying any of the parameters, then saving the new group of settings as a Color Setting that you'll then have on hand in the drop down. IF you want to change the rendering intent, then you must check the Advanced Mode box to show the options below Policies.
The only setting that you would want to change is the RGB working space, and perhaps the rendering intent depending on the average image content.
If you mostly have digital camera input , scanned images on consumer grade scanners, or outsourced images then sRGB would be a reasonable choice to change the working space to. You'll note that as soon as you change any setting the preset name in the "Settings" drop down will change to custom. That's simply to show that you've modified the base set. The default base sets will always be available in the drop down.
What you'll do is click on the save button and give this personalized setting your own workflow name. It'll then appear in the "Settings" drop down list. You can save different sets with different personalizations.
There are important default policies for Color Management. These should not be changed as they alert you to any files that differ from you're chosen workflow.
These settings offer options upon opening of what the difference is between the image and your workflow settings. If the images have no profile then as said earlier it could fit into the sRGB space. Some scanners don't tag the files even when the are pre-formatted into your working space. In this case you'll just assume the working space. If the images has a known source then you can assign this profile or assign and convert. For more information on correct workflow I recommend Bruce Fraser's book 'Real World Photoshop' and Martin Evening's 'Photoshop for photographers'.
Many users of the HP 30/130 will want to achieve the maximum quality therefore I recommend the standard local Color Settings of Prepress with an Adobe RGB working space. This suits the HP 30/130 very well , is a standard workflow, and is an interchange format between high end, high quality prepress and publication.