LaserSoft Imaging

I use SF6 as a plug-in to Photoshop 7. The Silverfast CMS settings are set to embed a profile with my scan. However, is it true that Photoshop does not recognize embedded profiles when acquiring images via a plug-in?

If so, I suppose that I should view the scan in Photoshop, and then Assign the scanner's profile, and then Convert to my working space. True?

Dear Anton Marc

why should PS not recognize the profile?
I you set the profiles embedded by SilverFast and used by Photoshop to be deliberately different, you'll find Photoshop complaining about this when importing the image from the SilverFast plugin.

"Why should PS not recognize the profile?" Because it behaves strangely with plug-in scans that supposedly do not have a profile, as I will explain below. But first, I asked my question to you because I read in a reputable book (Real World Photoshop by Blatner & Fraser, p.476) that Photoshop 7 doesn't recognize profiles in scans made by plug-in scanner software.

After your response, I did some testing and I learned that Photoshop will indeed advise me if the profile embedded by Silverfast is different than the Working Space specified in Photoshop. HOWEVER, I also know that if I ask Silverfast AI 6.2.1r4 NOT to embed a profile with the plug-in scan, Photoshop does NOT advise me that the file is missing a profile!

If I then ask Photoshop to Convert Profile on this scan, it claims that the Source Space is the same as my Working Space even though there is supposedly no embedded profile. So, it appears as if Photoshop merely opens the scan in the Working Space, even though I have my Photoshop Color Settings set to always warn me of missing profiles.

If I use Photoshop to open a scan that I've made using SF6 as STANDALONE software (instead of a plug-in application), then Photoshop WILL advise me that the file has no embedded profile.

I hope this explains why it is easy to be uncertain about the effect of the SF settings for embedding profiles.

Dear Anton Marc

indeed my PS 7 installation also does behave the described way: Opening an image file with no embedded profile does always give my a warning while importing it will not.
However importing with an embedded profile different from PS work space results in a warning, too.

As the routines in SilverFast don't differ and Blatner & Fraser claim this to be a commonly known error (I am sorry, I am no PS guru) you would need to ask Adobe support about this issue.

However, if this is already fixed in Adobe Photoshop 8/CS, you probably don't need to

If this turns out to be a problem of the importing routines of Photoshop, you might as well use the scan-to-file-mode of SilverFast and load the files into PS, even though this is less convenient.

I have the Fraser/Blatner Real World Photoshop book. In discussing misinformation about profile embedding in scanner software, I believe the authors are referring to the software provided for older desktop scanners, not sophisticated programs like Silverfast, or software supplied with many of the newer or higher-end scanners.

Photoshop doesn't warn me about a missing profile or mismatched profile when I scan from my Epson 2450 with Silverfast because Silverfast is configured for the 'Adobe RGB 1998' colorspace and set to embed that profile. Since Photoshop's colorspace is also set to 'Adobe RGB 1998', there is no conversion necessary.