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.
>Great, thank you for making me not going insane But why is this stuff so inaccurate?
I'm going to offer some advice. I've been doing this since 1975, I 've watched the MAC come and go transforming itself into a music player and then into a phone.
Develop a relationship with your monitor and output devices, by that I mean understand the difference between what you see on the screen and what you see on the paper. Then output your work, make money and be happy.
The detailed analysis of this will drive you crazy and into bankruptcy.
The reason is that R255 G0 B0 - R0 G255 B0 - R0 G0 B255 correspond to nothing in CMYK so any conversion is subject to the software designer. Even the starting point since those RGB numbers mean nothing unless assigned to a specific color space. So there is no RGB CYAN, RGB magenta, RGB Yellow or RGB black.
In fact because of a near zero standardization in pigments the CMYK color space has mutated and has very little value in standardization except if you use SWOP, Euro or GRACOL standard pigments.
The best you can do is align your color management policies, use commercial profiles, keep a properly lit and colored work environment, use professional level graphic applications that support postscript and ICC color management and use proofing equipment that has some commercial certification for your region.
Would you think a custom built profile would give me a better result with this printer? If so, I would be happy to pay for that.
I simply can't get into my head why the RGB values aren't mapped to use the CMYK color space. I mean RGB is a larger color space to begin with, and then it's crazy that it should be mapped to an even smaller space than CMYK by the profile! I mean mapping G255B255 to anything other than C100 is a logic very hard for me to accept. If G255B255 was mapped to C100 it would be a logic I could happily accept, but not that it's mapped to 57-0-16-0. What do you think of that logic?
>Would you think a custom built profile would give me a better result with this printer? If so, I would be happy to pay for that.
No the most cost effective method for you is to standardize your ICC profiles on the regional CMYK and RGB profiles used commercially. Keep your monitor regularly calibrated, convert to CMYK in Photo-PAINT, place the CMYK images into Draw and print.
Try this set internal RGB and activate arrow to monitor, set your color engine to your choice, I use MS and rendering to perceptual, activate arrow to your separation printer profile and set that profile to the local commercial and set the monitor profile to your custom. In PP open an RGB image rename it and save then convert to CMYK with no adjustments. Then open the original RGB image rename it and save, then convert to CMYK but adjusting the CMYK curves to give you a better display. Then print both CMYK images.
David Milisock said:No the most cost effective method for you is to standardize your ICC profiles on the regional CMYK and RGB profiles used commercially.
I use the profiles I get from the different printers. So far this has been working well. I also keep my monitor calibrated but I usually let the ICC profile take care of the bitmaps at PDF conversion, which I think works really well.
David Milisock said:I use MS and rendering
My screen looks like crap when I use MS color engine. Kodak looks better here. What's the difference?
David Milisock said:Then print both CMYK images.
Print on my inkjet with the canned profile?
Foster, check if there is a SWOP option in the printer driver!
I've worked with that model machine, it is a grandiose pain in the butt and if you have fussy people to please, you can tear your hair out. Then once I got it setup correctly, my boss complained about the time, the toner I'd used and the paper.
I've often found there is no recompense for doing a good job and being conscientous.
I would say this printer is probably good for printing office stuff in rather high volumes. So that when it works fine, you really make use of it. If you print some pages every other day, the hassle with it and the cost will be way too large compared to the number of printed pages.
In fact most of the ink it uses ends up in the compartment for ink waste...