Placing PNG does not honour the ICC in InDesign

[Lukas Engqvist]

Any image can be tagged in InDesign but I was shocked that it wasn't activated by default, even if "honour profiles" is chosen. Was expecting it to behave as JPG, TIF, PSD.

 

[rich apollo]

If you create a screen grab on your Mac, the file claims to be a png file, but I can't get InDesign to import one of these.

If you save as a png out of Photoshop, again I can't get InDesign to import the file. In each of these two cases InDesign says the file is an "Invalid PNG file."

Each of these two situations creates a file which has a profile embedded.

If you take the same file in Photoshop and "Save for Web and Devices..." (same as old ImageReady) the resulting file can be placed into InDesign, but does not contain an embedded ICC profile. If you take a look at this link: Ultimate Cross Platform Color it looks like png only has the ability to be sRGB or not sRGB. Re-opening this file in Photoshop generates the following message: "The indexed color document "name of file.png" has a file format that does not support embedded color profiles."

I don't think InDesign expects much color info from a png file.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

oh I was exporting to png, my file was ECI rgb, and seems to have that profile embedded in PS. Screen dumps usually have monitor profile attatched.

 

[rich apollo]

oh I was exporting to png, my file was ECI rgb, and seems to have that profile embedded in PS. Screen dumps usually have monitor profile attatched.

Yes, they do. And I can't quite figure out that behavior - it seems to be outside the spec.

Where are you exporting from, Lukas?

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

photoshop, the PNG clearly have the ICC embedded, seems it's just that the peeps at Adobe thought they could skipp colormanagement when it came to PNG…Â*or assume that people want inconsistent colour ;P

 

[rich apollo]

It looks like the PNG spec doesn't allow for color management - only a flag that says, "It is sRGB" or "It is not sRGB". Strange that there is this inconsistency between the Creative Suite apps.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

OH?

OH?


If you are on a mac just open a screen dump in Photoshop to see that it has an ICC!
That sRGB is the only ICC mentioned in your quoted text is not surprising as it is refering to Color Management from a web perspective, and if it is sRGB it would be enough to reference rather than include, but to have a label to say what it is not sounds rediculous.