Color profiles are an essential part of VFX work. As a project changes hands and is loaded across multiple devices and into multiple programs, the consistency of a color palette is required for the overall quality of a finished product,
As we’ve recently found out, users of Adobe products may hit a speedbump in loading color profiles if they don’t have the full Adobe Creative Cloud suite installed.
A user contacted us while trying to load a video-format color profile (Rec. 709) for a file in Photoshop. This was harder than it sounded: For whatever reason, the color profile, and others like it were nowhere to be found.
Upon further investigation, we found that the profiles weren’t automatically bundled and loaded with Photoshop; the user needed to install Adobe AfterEffects in order to be able to utilize the functionality. In other words, a standalone Photoshop is limited in what color profiles it can load, and seems to require other Adobe products to be installed. And we believe it is possible installing Premiere (or possibly simply Media Encoder) would also add the video format color profiles like Rec. 709.
Whether or not this represents an oversight on Adobe’s part, it seems like a good thing to keep in mind: If you’re missing color profiles in Photoshop, you may need to install the other video/animation specific software on your system, even if you don’t need or have plans to use them.
Having troubles with VFX software? Need a hand with Adobe color profiles? Nodal can help! Contact us today.