After reading the hudson explanation - it's starting to make sense. BUT, ICC profile is embedded into the eps file (in my case CMYK File, using SWOP V2) and once it's in versaworks I have all kinds of ICC profiles to specify in color management tab. Should I MATCH this to Swop V2? We usually leave it as default...what happens if we send the CMYK file SWOPv2 to versaworks, and switch the ICC (in versaworks) to adobe Rgb 1998?
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Color Management
- Thread starter Jim Hill
- Start date
Terremoto
New Member
You should match the ICC profile in Versaworks to your working colour space. That being said, you should also have Versaworks set to use the embedded profile.
As to assigning aRGB 1998 to a U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 profile embedded in your input file you're rolling the dice. Colours that are covered by both gamut maps will likely be fine but those that don't overlap will surely give unpredictable results.
In any case you would be much further ahead to design/edit in the sRGB colour space. Your Roland printer is quite capable of outputting substantially more colours than what are available in the CMYK U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 profile. As a matter of fact it can even produce some colours that are outside the sRGB colour space.
Why restrict your Roland Printer to a small subset of what it can actually produce? By designing/editing in CMYK U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 colour space you're doing exactly that.
Here's something to consider. As printer technology improves and, consequently the gamut of the output, the files you've designed/edited in the s or a RGB colour space are already able to take advantage of the latest technology. Or say you upgrade to a six colour printer. Your files are ready to take advantage of that.
U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 is already getting a little long in the tooth. Not to mention that your Roland printer is NOT an offset web printing press and you're more than likely printing on vinyl instead of coated paper.
If you really want to get a grip on colour management and why it matters visit the International Consortium on Color website. Once there a good place to start is their FAQ page.
There are other links I've provided earlier in this thread that should steer you in the right direction as well. Figuring out a proper ICC compliant workflow isn't easy but it's not rocket science either providing you're willing to set aside preconceived notions and do a bit of research. The links I've provided are more than adequate for that.
Dan
F1225hgB42w
Guest
Color management is complex because there are SEVERAL ways to manage color depending on the customers desires.
Anyone heard of G7 (Dan - that was directed at you)? Inkjet printers can be outputted in a CMYK workflow and have great results! We are G7 certified and run a wide range of inkjet printers in both CMYK and RGB depending on the desired results of our customers.
Here is plan and simple workflow to follow:
1) ALWAYS design in RGB - that way the graphics can be used for a variety of advertising medias (such as print, web, or television). You can always dumb down color gamut easier than you can enlarge it.
2) After design concepts have been approved make both RGB and CMYK versions of your artwork. For RGB I'd recommend Adobe RGB 1998 and embed any profiles of native files as well as embed the profile into the PDF wrappers. For CMYK it's not necessary for you to embed a profile (but it's always helpful so I recommend embedding a CMYK profile).
3) Once you know the following:
A) Desired Media
B) Desired print resolution
C) If the print output needs to match print materials from other printers/presses which may have smaller color gamut capabilities.
IF the combination of your inks/media/print resolution are not capable of offering a reasonably close reproducible sRGB color space - I'd recommend printing off your CMYK files.
OR
If you have to match print samples from a printer with a smaller color gamut than I'd also recommend using the CMYK files.
IF your customer wants the best range of colors possible I'd recommend using your RGB files for printing.
RIPS --
In your RIP (by the way WaSatch sucks for color management - I have WaSatch Rip for Dye Sub Printing and I can't stand it - so for inkjet large format or photo/fine art printing we use either EFI Fiery XF or Colorgate Production Server both are awesome RIPS but are pricy - since we use spot color substitutions for white and metallic silvers - off our new s70s we had to buy upgraded versions of the RIPS at about 11k for the EFI RIP with the number of printers we run on it and the color management features and about 14K for the Colorgate RIP which runs our flatbed printers).
In any rip you should have a few key settings you need to be looking for:
1) Honoring Embedded Profiles - MAKE SURE THIS IS ALWAYS CHECKED
2) Rendering Intents - these are dependent on the desired outputs and the files color spaces being output - for photo/fine art I generally use perceptual, for signage/graphics we typically use relative color metric.
3) Default source profiles - This is the profile that will be assigned to your source files IF you don't have an embedded profile OR you don't honor embedded profiles - I'd recommend:
sRGB for RGB
US Web coated 2 for CMYK
4) Output profiles/printer environments - It sounds like you are using stock profiles (not making your own). If that is the case you should be fine 90-95% of the time as long as you have your workflow correct and your settings in the RIP correct.
By setting the proper color workflow during preflight and then setting your RIP to the proper settings outlined above - if your manufacturer profile is decent you will have great results and not have many (if any) complaints.
Best of Luck!
DSGI
P.S. Designing in Corel Draw is like having someone deliver me a Power Point file for printing. Do yourself a favor and for the 50.00 bucks a month it costs - buy the Creative Cloud CS6 by adobe and use the creative suite for your design/layout work. It's worth the money.
Anyone heard of G7 (Dan - that was directed at you)? Inkjet printers can be outputted in a CMYK workflow and have great results! We are G7 certified and run a wide range of inkjet printers in both CMYK and RGB depending on the desired results of our customers.
Here is plan and simple workflow to follow:
1) ALWAYS design in RGB - that way the graphics can be used for a variety of advertising medias (such as print, web, or television). You can always dumb down color gamut easier than you can enlarge it.
2) After design concepts have been approved make both RGB and CMYK versions of your artwork. For RGB I'd recommend Adobe RGB 1998 and embed any profiles of native files as well as embed the profile into the PDF wrappers. For CMYK it's not necessary for you to embed a profile (but it's always helpful so I recommend embedding a CMYK profile).
3) Once you know the following:
A) Desired Media
B) Desired print resolution
C) If the print output needs to match print materials from other printers/presses which may have smaller color gamut capabilities.
IF the combination of your inks/media/print resolution are not capable of offering a reasonably close reproducible sRGB color space - I'd recommend printing off your CMYK files.
OR
If you have to match print samples from a printer with a smaller color gamut than I'd also recommend using the CMYK files.
IF your customer wants the best range of colors possible I'd recommend using your RGB files for printing.
RIPS --
In your RIP (by the way WaSatch sucks for color management - I have WaSatch Rip for Dye Sub Printing and I can't stand it - so for inkjet large format or photo/fine art printing we use either EFI Fiery XF or Colorgate Production Server both are awesome RIPS but are pricy - since we use spot color substitutions for white and metallic silvers - off our new s70s we had to buy upgraded versions of the RIPS at about 11k for the EFI RIP with the number of printers we run on it and the color management features and about 14K for the Colorgate RIP which runs our flatbed printers).
In any rip you should have a few key settings you need to be looking for:
1) Honoring Embedded Profiles - MAKE SURE THIS IS ALWAYS CHECKED
2) Rendering Intents - these are dependent on the desired outputs and the files color spaces being output - for photo/fine art I generally use perceptual, for signage/graphics we typically use relative color metric.
3) Default source profiles - This is the profile that will be assigned to your source files IF you don't have an embedded profile OR you don't honor embedded profiles - I'd recommend:
sRGB for RGB
US Web coated 2 for CMYK
4) Output profiles/printer environments - It sounds like you are using stock profiles (not making your own). If that is the case you should be fine 90-95% of the time as long as you have your workflow correct and your settings in the RIP correct.
By setting the proper color workflow during preflight and then setting your RIP to the proper settings outlined above - if your manufacturer profile is decent you will have great results and not have many (if any) complaints.
Best of Luck!
DSGI
P.S. Designing in Corel Draw is like having someone deliver me a Power Point file for printing. Do yourself a favor and for the 50.00 bucks a month it costs - buy the Creative Cloud CS6 by adobe and use the creative suite for your design/layout work. It's worth the money.
heyskull
New Member
We design in Signlab which is set RGB and save as a Level3 EPS and print out using Wasatch 6.2.
We set up colour management right at the start and colours have been consistent.
Calibrate Monitors and Scanners so at least you are starting at a set base point.
Colour management is all about a compromise trying to match colours from RGB Monitors, CMYK Desktop Printers, Scanners and Wide Format Printers will always be difficult.
Then you will get a customer who insists on a certain RGB, CMYK, RAL or Pantone Colour which because they printed it on their desktop printer doesn't match your output!
This will always be a nightmare problem which you will never be able to make everyone happy with.
Just remember you are always going to be an ish with colours as you are only using 4 colours to recreate the whole spectrum (which is impossible).
SC
We set up colour management right at the start and colours have been consistent.
Calibrate Monitors and Scanners so at least you are starting at a set base point.
Colour management is all about a compromise trying to match colours from RGB Monitors, CMYK Desktop Printers, Scanners and Wide Format Printers will always be difficult.
Then you will get a customer who insists on a certain RGB, CMYK, RAL or Pantone Colour which because they printed it on their desktop printer doesn't match your output!
This will always be a nightmare problem which you will never be able to make everyone happy with.
Just remember you are always going to be an ish with colours as you are only using 4 colours to recreate the whole spectrum (which is impossible).
SC
Terremoto
New Member
I have heard of G7 but wouldn't you think that's a bit of overkill for what the OP is trying to achieve? Many sign shops are one and two man operations that just want a workflow that works without the workflow itself being work.
True enough. There's a LOT more reasons why this is a good habit to get into.
Sounds impressive but I think what the OP was wanting was a basic RIP to provide feedstock for his Roland printer.
Couldn't agree with you more.
I would suggest a rendering intent of "Saturation" for signage/graphics unless there's lots of fades and blends.
To each his own I suppose. More of a Ford / Chevy thing. BOTH are powerful programs and I use both but I much prefer CorelDraw for it's superior colour management (comparing current versions of CorelDraw and Illustrator), no 200 inch limit, the ability to do pretty much anything without this or that plugin, the ability to do pretty much anything without unnecessary mouse clicks or digging though cascading menus. CorelDraw can also open and handle considerably more file formats than Illustrator.
The old school crowd argue endlessly over the merits of this or that paint or paintbrush. Not much different today except we argue about the merits or misgivings of our digital tools.
That being said, Adobe PhotoShop is an improvement over Corel PhotoPaint.
F1225hgB42w
Guest
Yes Dan - G7 is an expensive and intense process designed for shops with several printers to try and match color across those printers. It is overkill, my point was though that it's not wrong to output to an inkjet printer in CMYK even though the printer may have a larger capability...
I like the discussion though!
CalamityJay
New Member
Print out a pantone LUT "look up table" using RGB and CMYK space.
You will see a difference in color for sure because of the differences in color gamut size.
I'd reccommend these pdf. files as a way to "see" your color limitations when printing.
http://www.canvasprintmaker.co.uk/images/free-pantone-colour-chart.pdf
(cmyk ^)
http://planetguide.com/docs/Pantone chart with RGB and HTML conversions.pdf
(rgb^)
also print out synthetic color targets and see on your monitor where the color gamut is lacking. (if it is profiled correctly)
http://www.hutchcolor.com/Images_and_targets.html
granger rainbow and RGBXPLORER8.tiff
You will see a difference in color for sure because of the differences in color gamut size.
I'd reccommend these pdf. files as a way to "see" your color limitations when printing.
http://www.canvasprintmaker.co.uk/images/free-pantone-colour-chart.pdf
(cmyk ^)
http://planetguide.com/docs/Pantone chart with RGB and HTML conversions.pdf
(rgb^)
also print out synthetic color targets and see on your monitor where the color gamut is lacking. (if it is profiled correctly)
http://www.hutchcolor.com/Images_and_targets.html
granger rainbow and RGBXPLORER8.tiff
eye4clr
New Member
Listen to Terremoto (Dan), what he says is dead on. I worked for 15+ years as a consultant and color management trainer and worked for two color management software companies before opening my own shop. It can be a very simple subject once you get your head around the basics.
You can get excellent results from RGB, CMYK, or PANTONE. You just have to have your applications agree on what exactly is RGB, CMYK, and the modern RIPs almost all have proper lookup tables for PANTONE colors. Yes RGB has greater potential for gamut, but if you're given CMYK files, there is no advantage to converting them prior to printing just to adhere to some RGB dogma.
This brings you back to a simple, effective setup based around sRGB and US Web Coated SWOP if you're in the US. Make sure your design apps all share these "Working Spaces". Then make sure your RIP is configured to use these same profiles as the Input Profiles. There are some folks that would benefit from other RGB working spaces, but they're few and far in between.
Set your RIP up to use Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric rendering intents for everything. Typically you're best off not to mix these and better off to use one or the other across the board for all file types. As a default I'd suggest Perceptual.
Then comes the part you're really missing, using proper, custom made output profiles for each of your day to day medias. Without these as the foundation for accurate output, you're going to get inconsistent results from each media. Expect some complications when you first start making profiles. But once you've made a few, it becomes routine and you'll wonder why everyone doesn't do it. You don't have to have some magic eye to judge color, or some jaw dropping incantations to get the color you want. All you need is some fundamental knowledge and a decent RIP that'll do it's job of giving you a healthy balance of control and simplicity. Oh, you'll also need a spectrophotometer and software to generate a CMYK ICC profile for your output.
Don't sweat the monitors. Once you have the workflow sorted and some solid printer profiles, you care much less about what's on the monitors. Besides, chasing real softproofing is a LOT of work for results that are accurate.
Beware of anyone purporting that their method of using only RGB or only CMYK as being "the" way to do things. If you're really managing color, you can manage any color format (RGB, CMYK, PANTONE), and any color space (sRGB, US Web Coated SWOP, Japan Web Coated, AdobeRGB, ColorMatchRGB, etc.) and do them all pretty much equally well.
You can get excellent results from RGB, CMYK, or PANTONE. You just have to have your applications agree on what exactly is RGB, CMYK, and the modern RIPs almost all have proper lookup tables for PANTONE colors. Yes RGB has greater potential for gamut, but if you're given CMYK files, there is no advantage to converting them prior to printing just to adhere to some RGB dogma.
This brings you back to a simple, effective setup based around sRGB and US Web Coated SWOP if you're in the US. Make sure your design apps all share these "Working Spaces". Then make sure your RIP is configured to use these same profiles as the Input Profiles. There are some folks that would benefit from other RGB working spaces, but they're few and far in between.
Set your RIP up to use Perceptual or Relative Colorimetric rendering intents for everything. Typically you're best off not to mix these and better off to use one or the other across the board for all file types. As a default I'd suggest Perceptual.
Then comes the part you're really missing, using proper, custom made output profiles for each of your day to day medias. Without these as the foundation for accurate output, you're going to get inconsistent results from each media. Expect some complications when you first start making profiles. But once you've made a few, it becomes routine and you'll wonder why everyone doesn't do it. You don't have to have some magic eye to judge color, or some jaw dropping incantations to get the color you want. All you need is some fundamental knowledge and a decent RIP that'll do it's job of giving you a healthy balance of control and simplicity. Oh, you'll also need a spectrophotometer and software to generate a CMYK ICC profile for your output.
Don't sweat the monitors. Once you have the workflow sorted and some solid printer profiles, you care much less about what's on the monitors. Besides, chasing real softproofing is a LOT of work for results that are accurate.
Beware of anyone purporting that their method of using only RGB or only CMYK as being "the" way to do things. If you're really managing color, you can manage any color format (RGB, CMYK, PANTONE), and any color space (sRGB, US Web Coated SWOP, Japan Web Coated, AdobeRGB, ColorMatchRGB, etc.) and do them all pretty much equally well.
phototec
New Member
Yea, it's always folks like you who have 15 years experience of color management behind them who claim it's EASY to do, well NOT everybody has your experience and many people have trouble with color management.
It would be more helpful, for you as a color management trainer, to give basic step by step procedures to guide a novice on how to start out and set-up color management, it's only easy if you know how to do it...
Since I'm coming to wide format CMYK from desktop Epson med format rgb 6 to 8 color photo printing, the first thing often stressed & recommended for good color mgnt is profiling the monitor.
Monitors are RGB but the CLUT(Color look up table) for any monitor must be calibrated by a device so that your monitor's RGB is the same values as Adobe 1998 RGB that Adobe PS or Illy is defaulted to, basicly.
sRGB is a subset CLUT of Adobe RGB that is used generally in web pages so that most colors look about right on the web.
The RIP translates the CLUT values from the file sent to what the printer can print(repeating what's been said before better by others). If the file has it wrong so will the rip.
But if the monitor is not calibrated it might be akin to asking a color blind person to paint a house with out id'ing by name each color to use where on the house to paint and relying on him to figure it out from unnamed buckets of paints.
I'm just trying to come to this with a different POV, hopefully to help see it a bit better.
Hope it helps
Wyndham
Monitors are RGB but the CLUT(Color look up table) for any monitor must be calibrated by a device so that your monitor's RGB is the same values as Adobe 1998 RGB that Adobe PS or Illy is defaulted to, basicly.
sRGB is a subset CLUT of Adobe RGB that is used generally in web pages so that most colors look about right on the web.
The RIP translates the CLUT values from the file sent to what the printer can print(repeating what's been said before better by others). If the file has it wrong so will the rip.
But if the monitor is not calibrated it might be akin to asking a color blind person to paint a house with out id'ing by name each color to use where on the house to paint and relying on him to figure it out from unnamed buckets of paints.
I'm just trying to come to this with a different POV, hopefully to help see it a bit better.
Hope it helps
Wyndham
eye4clr
New Member
Having a calibrated and profiled monitor is nice. But in order of importance, it's far below having good printer profiles and a properly setup workflow.
You can have a black and white monitor and still have great color day in day out.
A few basics to keep in mind regarding monitor profiles.....never use one as the working space in any application. Monitor profiles exist exclusively as the connection between the color in the file and displaying it correctly on screen. Just as the media profile's job is to accurately output the file on whatever printer/rip/media combination you're using.
With this perspective of these device profiles (monitor or printer), all that maters is if the profile is accurately representing the color in the file. When the printer profile does its job, the monitor becomes far less important. And if each profile is doing its job, things tend to be very close between the monitor and the printer. This is a very reasonable and functional thing.
But expecting the print and what's on screen to be EXACTLY the same requires control over every tiny variable in the process, especially the lighting on the print as you view the comparison. This tends to make it more impractical for the busy day to day effort of just getting jobs out the door. Redoing the monitor profile every day, possibly several times a day, and investing in lighting with a high CRI (color rendering index) and possibly a proper light box for the desktop just makes things messier than they usually need to be for a sign or large format shop. If you're a super fussy art house or cater to demanding photographers every day, then make the investment/effort. Otherwise, GET TO WORK printing, laminating, and finishing.
You can have a black and white monitor and still have great color day in day out.
A few basics to keep in mind regarding monitor profiles.....never use one as the working space in any application. Monitor profiles exist exclusively as the connection between the color in the file and displaying it correctly on screen. Just as the media profile's job is to accurately output the file on whatever printer/rip/media combination you're using.
With this perspective of these device profiles (monitor or printer), all that maters is if the profile is accurately representing the color in the file. When the printer profile does its job, the monitor becomes far less important. And if each profile is doing its job, things tend to be very close between the monitor and the printer. This is a very reasonable and functional thing.
But expecting the print and what's on screen to be EXACTLY the same requires control over every tiny variable in the process, especially the lighting on the print as you view the comparison. This tends to make it more impractical for the busy day to day effort of just getting jobs out the door. Redoing the monitor profile every day, possibly several times a day, and investing in lighting with a high CRI (color rendering index) and possibly a proper light box for the desktop just makes things messier than they usually need to be for a sign or large format shop. If you're a super fussy art house or cater to demanding photographers every day, then make the investment/effort. Otherwise, GET TO WORK printing, laminating, and finishing.