I am curious about what palette to use for what purpose. I know you are supposed to use CMYK palette when designing for separations printing processes, but on the other hand - you could use the RGB palette just as well, if you have a color calibrated system and a printer profile and if you leave a PDF to the printer, which I suppose most people do. It works if you set the color output to CMYK and use the printer ICC profile for conversion.
So, what is your choice regarding color models? It would be interesting to hear how you all work.
Hello there Shabbadang,It depends really on the assignment, and from time to time.I have different colours, my own palette of colours, so that even if I work with RGB it comes out as I like it when I cmyk it. But then of course, as long as I dont know the quality of the paper, or dont have a profile from my client or the printer (tryckeriet eller kunden), I go by instinct when colouring my illustrations I make for magazines and newspapers (Tabloid, morning newspaper or glossy magazines paper).If the client and myself set up a profile then of course I follow that specified colour profile, weather its cmyk, RGB or even PMS/Pantone.But 99% of the time I ask the client questions if necessary how they like to have it delivered. There are times, if not so often, but still, when the client ask for RGB.
Hej Stefan,
Your answer is a bit elusive ... But I try to understand it [:-)] Anyway, my question really boils down to me thinking the RGB palette is sort of easier to work with. The CMYK palette gets rahter dul when you turn color calibration (CM) on, while the RGB seem to retain a wider gamut (but that must be wrong, mustn't it?) so it's easier to find a color you like. The CMYK palette gets rather muddy, especially the darker greens, with CM turned on. So I'd rather use RGB, buth then again, you don't want to be too far off gamut.
Sally Bode said:Actually there are some colors which cannot be mapped and there are no real good substitutes.
Well, all RGB colors must be mapped to something, and that's where the rendering intents come into play. But when the results are as bad as I described above I find it ridiculous. I mean when RGB cyan (G255B255) is mapped to something less than C100, then surely something must be wrong. RGB is the larger color space and thus shouldn't look like the lesser when printed. Well, it might be just this printer profile, I don't know. Cause when I print without applying the printer profile both RGB cyan and CMYK cyan look the same. Thus, the printer profile is actually worsening the output rather than improving it. Do you see what I mean?
Sally Bode said:I don't understand when these tools are available, that you want it to work differently?
I have no problem with the way CM works in Corel Draw. It is almost comprehensible compared to some other programs (no names) I've seen and used. It seems my hangup stems from the poor accuracy of some profiles I am using. And therefore I am asking some questions.
>I mean when RGB cyan (G255B255) is mapped to something less than C100, then surely something must be wrong.
Here is where you have a misunderstanding. If sRGB G255 B255 is mapped to C100 what do they map ProPhoto G255 B255 to? These are two different pure blues in RGB and what would you have them mapped to?
You're treating RGB colors as absolute and they are not.
David Milisock said:what do they map ProPhoto G255 B255 to?
I don't know what that is, but I suppose it's a larger RGB space than SRGB and I suppose it will have to be mapped to the same. I mean you are only working in one RGB space at the time, so why bother about the others? And how much could it differ? The inkreading figures I presented are way out as far as I can see anyway. Agree?
David Milisock said: You're treating RGB colors as absolute and they are not.
I'm not sure about that, I just think RGB should be mapped to make use of the printers whole gamut. Why less? I think it's ridiculous that a larger color space should be represented by an unnecessarily small color space. Well, I can just turn CM off and print the values uncalibrated and I will get the larger gamut, but then I will have no idea when looking on screen what they will look like as printed. Only that they will be as vivid as possible.
To me that is not what CM is about. It is about letting you know on screen what the printed matter will look like, not to alter the appearance of the printed matter. Agree?
>I mean you are only working in one RGB space at the time, so why bother about the others?
Unfortunately those who design color profiles have to figure out how their profile is going to handle each and every color space. That's why the same readings for Prophoto and sRGB that should produce in your opinion a true cyan do not. It can't or how would it distinguish between Prophoto and sRGB.
>I'm not sure about that, I just think RGB should be mapped to make use of the printers whole gamut. Why less ?
Look at it this way, CMYK is a finite gamut in which RGB gamuts have to be mapped. With your concept how does a CMYK device distinguish between two RGB gamuts of different size? When in reality the same RGB numbers display differently in two different color spaces so the CMYK renderings have to reflect those two very different colors.
>It is about letting you know on screen what the printed matter will look like, not to alter the appearance of the printed matter. Agree?
No. In 32 years of printing I have never seen a job on paper that looked like the monitor. Close but no cigar! Color management is a process of controls that allow us to manipulate the errors in all the current color technologies in a way that produces predictable results from desktop to print.