working space RGB/CMYK

[WB]

just wondering what you guys out there using for your working space when designing and printing?

RGB or CMYK??



We use CMYK, I know RGB has a large color Gamut but we find it more reliable to match colors using CMYK since all out print using CMYK inks.

what do you guys use and why?

 

[Fred Weiss]

RGB for both the color gamut and for a closer monitor to printed output match. In addition, many effects filters only work in RGB.

 

[thewood]

vector objects CMYK
raster RGB

 

[Ed]

We use CMYK.

Just thought it was the thing to do since the printers are CMYK...

We don't have any large format printers ourselves (we sub it out), but we once had a photo printed which we had sent in RGB... it looked awful. The magenta had grouped up together and looked blocky. I have no idea if they (the printers) were giving me bull by telling me that it was because I sent them RGB... but I've never sent in RGB again!

 

[WB]

Fred when you print do you print in RGB or do you convert to CMYK? I know we have RGB profiles setup up in our RIP so realistically we can take a customers file and print them in RGB (most of the time we convert them to CMYK or ask them to), but you never get true RGB with a CMYK printer.

Just curious

 

[Fred Weiss]

My files are in an RGB workspace in my design application. When they are ripped the output print profile is CMYK ... because the printer is CMYK and. therefore, that must be final color mode.

I can't speak for all RIP software, but I can tell you that, with Gerber software, even a CMYK file is converted to RGB and converted back to CMYK as part of the ripping process.

 

[WB]

Do you find that you can still hit most of the RGB colors?

I'm using ONYX production house and I believe everything is converted in to a device independant color space and then ripped into RGB/CMYK

I really trying to understand all of variables in getting a consistant color from our printers. It's very difficult when you get some many differnet files from different groups of people who all do they own thing when it comes to working space and output profiles.

 

[Tony Teveris]

Gerber software does the following:

RIP: CMYK image -> CMYKxx printer (no RGB space conversion)
RIP: RGB image -> CMYKxx printer

The -> represents a conversion from the image's source profile to the printer's output profile. This is all part of color management.


Monitor Viewing:

CMYK image -> output device profile -> WCS (rgb) -> monitor
RGB image -> output device profile -> WCS (RGB) -> monitor

The reason WE do it this way is we hope to represent on the screen what the image will print like. Of course the output device, WCS and monitor all have their own gamuts.


When we save a file the vector colors and image thumbnails are all saved in WCS. When a different user opens the file on their system we convert the WCS to their monitor space. If at any time the user selects a different image source profile, output device profile or monitor profile we need to run through the conversions.

I hope this clears any Omega questions up on color management. Maybe it creates more ??? Day off, back to lawn work.

 

[ENTDesign]

I use RGB. Gamot is wider, files are tighter, and my Epson inkjet RIP is set to do the conversion from RGB, so I get my best color output this way.

It is easy to convert later to CMYK if I need to send the file out for print production.

 

[Derf]

My work space is sRGB-2.1 However I use CMYK preview gamut so I do not make art out of gamut but my Color profile is still sRGB-2.1

sRGB-2.1 is the most common generic color profile that most peripherals are set to by default.

I tell my RIP the input color profile is sGRB-2.1 and let the Rip convert to CMYKxx for me.