Adobe After Effects CS4 - Manual (Page 616)

610 USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Effects and animation presets
Last updated 12/21/2009
Color Profile Converter effect
The Color Profile Converter effect converts a layer from one color space to another by specifying input and output
profiles.
In most cases, you should use automatic color management features to convert from one color space to another, rather
than using the Color Profile Converter to manually do the conversions. (See “
Color management ” on page 284.)
Important: In general, you should either work with color management features or use the Color Profile Converter—not both.
The profiles you select are embedded in the project, so you can use them even if you transfer the project to a computer
that doesn’t have the same profiles. When converting from one color space to another, you can specify how After
Effects handles the color conversion by selecting a rendering intent. You can also choose whether to linearize the input
or output profile.
This effect works with 8-bpc, 16-bpc, and 32-bpc color.
To convert the color profile of the layer, select a color profile from the Input Profile menu. Select Project Working
Space to use the profile specified in the project settings (File
> Project Settings). To linearize the input profile, select
the Linearize Input Profile option. Then select an output profile from the Output Profile menu. To linearize the output
profile, select the Linearize Output Profile. In the Intent menu, select a rendering intent.
Rendering intent options determine how source colors are adjusted. For example, colors that fall inside the destination
gamut may remain unchanged, or they may be adjusted to preserve the original range of visual relationships when
translated to a smaller destination gamut.
The result of choosing a rendering intent depends on the graphical content of an image and on the profiles used to
specify color spaces. Some profiles produce identical results for different rendering intents.
When specifying a rendering intent, you can choose to use black point compression. Black point compression ensures
that the shadow detail in the image is preserved by simulating the full dynamic range of the output device.
The following rendering intents are available for the Color Profile Converter effect:
Perceptual Attempts to preserve the visual relationship between colors so it’s perceived as natural to the human eye,
even though the color values themselves may change. This intent is suitable for images with many of out-of-gamut
colors.
Saturation Attempts to produce vivid colors in an image at the expense of color accuracy. This rendering intent is
suitable for images, such as graphic logos, in which bright saturated colors are more important than the exact
relationship between colors.
Relative Colorimetric Compares the extreme highlight of the source color space to the extreme highlight of the
destination color space and shifts all colors accordingly. Out-of-gamut colors are shifted to the closest reproducible
color in the destination color space. This rendering intent preserves more of the original colors in an image than
Perceptual. This rendering intent is used by default throughout After Effects.
Absolute Colorimetric Leaves colors that fall inside the destination gamut unchanged. Out-of-gamut colors are
clipped. No scaling of colors to the destination white point is performed. This intent aims to maintain color accuracy
at the expense of preserving relationships between colors.
Use the Scene-ref. Profile Compensation control to determine whether each instance of the Color Profile Converter
effect compensates for scene-referred profiles:
On Compensates for scene-referred profiles.
Off Doesn’t compensate for scene-referred profiles.
Use Project Setting Uses the setting indicated by the project’s Compensate For Scene-referred Profiles option.