When I use the find and replace feature to change from RGB to CMYK the colours come out a lot different. Usually a lot dark is this normal? I have used a online colour picker and the cmyk values are different to what coreldraw changes them to. Can anyone help me out here please? thanks in adavance
Yes, out of cmyk gamut rgb colors with change significantly when converted.
Hi David
Thank you for your reply, so is it best for me to manually change these colours? I have used this site https://www.colorhexa.com/ and it seems when I put in the hex number it comes up with as close to the RGB colour in the CMYK as possible.
I am working in darker blues and bright reds at the moment so they are not coming out too different from the RGB colours. Thank you for your input I have read a few of your previous posts on this matter, I still don't completely understand it but I am getting little more educated on it.
I have no idea about this site. What I can tell you is that out of gamut colors cannot print, they must be changed to in gamut colors.
Hex is RGB as it was designed for web. I'd design in CMYK to start with for CMYK work. What part of the world do you work?
Hi David, thanks again for your reply. The problem is I am trying to create a brand guideline and I need to add a colour palette with both RGB and CMYK. I am in New Zealand
Ok if you need a color guide I have some questions.
Is the art already created?
If so is it created in RGB or CMYK?
What ICC profiles were used in the creation of the art?
Is the color guide to be used internationally or only regionally?
Do you need a web standard?
What you want to do is time consuming but not complicated.
Hi David,
So the artwork is RGB, the colour profile is sRGB IEC61966-2.1, yes colour guide will be used internationally, not too sure about what web standard is. Thank you for your help I really appreciate it
Ok here is the scoop. This works the best if you have a really good color calibrated system.
The art is created RGB so it may have to have a color shift when converted to CMYK. It's a common mistake creating in RGB then having to provide the same art in CMYK best done the other way around as it produces nearly zero shift in color.
The only question, is the printed work going to be printed in CMYK or is it going to be a single Pantone Spot Color? If so, you'll need a Pantone reference book. We can simulate that in the application, but it requires care. Let me know and I'll show you how.
The sRGB color space you're using is fine anywhere in the world for office applications and web.
Ok the CMYK colors, you spell colour with a U, so I'm assuming a Europe CMYK ICC Profile. If that's the case, we'll have to simulate the conversions.
We'll need to set CorelDRAW default color management and the document color management to your sRGB and to the CMYK ICC profile for your region, make sure that spot colors conversions are set to LAB. In Europe (ECI) ISO V2 300 for coated materials.
Open a CorelDRAW document with your art in it, SAVE AS AND RENAME the file. This preserves a safe version with the original sRGB colors in it.
Select the RGB Color object, select the fill icon on the property bar, when the edit file dialog opens set it to CMYK, if it covers your object move it so you can see it, the display of the color may or may not shift significantly.
It most likely will shift some. In any case you can adjust the CMYK colors to create the most pleasing conversion. You may see color shifts that are significant and that will never look really close or even close at all in CMYK that's normal. Once you have a CMYK color that you can live with finish the conversion and save the file. This creates a coated paper CMYK color standard.
Do this for all your colors, then start the process again, this time set your CorelDRAW default and document color profiles to use the CMYK profile, ISO Uncoated. Open your original sRGB file SAVE AS AND RENAME. Do the conversions again. This creates a uncoated paper CMYK color standard.
At the end of this process, you'll have sRGB color standards that you can give to anyone (make sure you label it as sRGB color space) and CMYK standards for coated and uncoated paper.
The CMYK color standards do need to be labeled for coated paper and uncoated paper, but they do not have to be labeled for their ICC profile.
Thank you again for your reply and solutions. I have downloaded your books and read part of them and also read a bunch of the stuff on your web page. The job in questions is for a client in England so your suggestions for the European cmyk profile will work I presume.
This job started out as a Vehicle wrap and I understand that depending on the sign or wrap shop and what hardware (printer) they run the final results can vary a lot at final output. This is such a complicated subject and I want to try understand it more. The job in question has actually now grown into a complete re-brand as I was able to up-sell a new logo to this client, but the logo is compiled of a few different transparencies. And a lot of these client prefer to have artwork supplied in adobe formats so this creates issues, and I know you have covered this in your book.
I have been getting my head around these issues, and I have been trialing workarounds that mainly involve me apply those transparencies in Illustrator. As far as the cmyk conversions I did basically do what you have outlined above minus applying the correct profile you have stated.
I will work through your solutions and see what sort of results I come out with.
Yet again I really appreciate you taking your time to guide me through this. I never knew this was so complicated.
Transparency presents a problem, Corel and Adobe approach coding for transparency differently so it's not compatible in terms of editing. Live Corel Transparency with come into Adobe as multiple objects and Adobe users will see it and assume it won't output. That's incorrect it outputs fine but it is uneditable in Adobe products. Best to flatten transparencies.
Also when getting your transparencies to display in Draw and export correctly you'll need to make sure your default color mode in the application and document is CMYK and you'll need to set proofing on to your CMYK profile. The proof settings will allow you to edit the color of the transparencies properly in Draw and the color mode will allow the export filters to convert the transparencies to CMYK.