Set print color management

You can specify whether Lightroom or the printer driver handles color management during printing. If you want to use a custom printer color profile created for a specific printer and paper combination, Lightroom handles the color management. Otherwise, the printer manages it. If Draft Mode Printing is enabled, the printer automatically handles color management.

Note: Custom printer color profiles are usually created using special devices and software that generate the profile files. If printer color profiles are not installed on your computer or if Lightroom cannot locate them, Managed By Printer and Other are the only options available in the Profile area of the Print Job panel.
  1. In the Color Management area of the Print Job panel, choose one of the following from the Profile pop-up menu:

    • To use a printer color profile to convert the image before sending it to the printer, choose a specific RGB profile listed in the menu.

      Important: If you choose a custom printer color profile in Lightroom, make sure color management is turned off in the printer driver software. Otherwise, your photos will be color converted twice, and the colors might not print as you expect. Lightroom does not recognize CMYK printer profiles.

    • To send the image data to the printer driver without first converting the image according to a profile, choose Managed By Printer.

      If you choose Manage By Printer, make sure to enable ICM Method for Image Color Management (Windows) or select ColorSync in the Color Management settings (Mac OS) for the printer driver software so that the correct profile is applied before printing the image. Depending on the print driver software, you can usually find the color management settings after the Print Document dialog box opens at Setup\Properties\Advanced (Windows), or in the pop-up menu below the Presets menu after the Print dialog box opens (Mac OS).

    • To select printer profiles to appear in the Profile pop-up menu, choose Other and then select the color profiles in the Choose Profiles dialog box.

      Note: Generally, you’ll choose this option if no profiles are listed in the Profile pop-up menu, or if the profile you want isn’t listed. Lightroom tries to find custom print profiles on your computer. If it’s unable to locate any profiles, choose Manage By Printer and let the printer driver handle the print color managing.
  2. Choose a rendering intent to specify how colors are converted from the image’s color space to the printer’s color space:
    Note: The printer’s color space will generally be smaller then the image’s color space, often resulting in colors that can’t be reproduced. The rendering intent you choose attempts to compensate for these out-of-gamut colors.

    • Perceptual rendering tries to preserve the visual relationship between colors. Colors that are in-gamut may change as out-of-gamut colors are shifted to reproducible colors. Perceptual rendering is a good choice when your image has many out-of gamut colors.

    • Relative rendering preserves all in-gamut colors and shifts out-of gamut colors to the closest reproducible color. The Relative option preserves more of the original color and is a good choice when you have few out-of-gamut colors.