Photoshop | InDesign > how to preserve colors?

[Carver]

I have a RGB image made with Photoshop.
When I placed it on InDesign it looked like it was converted to a CMYK format.

How can I preserve the vividness of colors?


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Hope this is in the right category :/

[Lukas Engqvist]

Well depends on where you want to go. If you are going to print then your "vividness" will dissapaear somwhere and that is what indesign simulates. You can see the same in photoshop if you use the proofing preview. Now you can get fairly vivid colour right at the edge of the output space, but if you are loosing more than necessary really depends on if you are manageing colours properly.
If you are working in Photoshop with AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB you must make sure that your colours are printable, and make sure you include the ICC profile. If indesign is assuming RGB to be sRGB you will get less vivid colours.
If you are creating something for screen viewing you can set the transparency blend space to RGB, also make sure the working RGB is the one you want… note that sRGB is the recomended for web and onscreen viewing standard.

[Nathan]

If it is a photograph, try using curves, or vibrance in photoshop after conversion. If it is not a photo, when you choose your colours in photoshop (or illustrator) in CMYK mode, it will display an exclamation point when you go outside the bounds of CMYK. Watch for this when selecting colours, and try and get as close as possible.

[Lukas Engqvist]

@Nathan
The exlamation tells you only the colours that are out ove gamut while in colour selector. If you do a global adjustment using an adjustment layer you will see no warning (except the gamut warning, wich is related to the proofing settings).

[Nathan]

@ Lukas I didn't realise that an adjustment layer could push colours out of gamut. Could you please explain how I can check if my colours are out of gamut after an adjustment layer is applied?