Re: Guidelines for color safety in color management unfriendly environement?
Re: Guidelines for color safety in color management unfriendly environement?
- Subject: Re: Guidelines for color safety in color management unfriendly environement?
- From: Chris Murphy <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 13:26:50 -0600
On Sep 25, 2004, at 1:43 AM, Paul Schilliger wrote:
I have had another misfortune due to color management. I'm left with
60,000 blueish-reddish flyers for the printer ignored the embedded
profile. Problem with too many printers is that they turn off color
management or have older versions of Photoshop and this is not the
first time I have a bad surprise.
Unfortunately, I am not dealing directly with the printers but have to
pass through intermediates. I would like to find a safer way to manage
color in this context. To what space should I set the CMYK work space
in Photoshop (7.1)? Default Photoshop 5? ...Or 4? Eurostandard coated
or Eurostandard Coated V2? (I'm in Europe).
I have also a question related to soft proofing in Photoshop. Can I
set for instance the color work space to CMYK and the soft proofing
profile to my monitor profile to see what the image looks like in CMYK
without profile? I know I can do it but the setting does not remain or
then it changes the Photoshop workspace.
Observations:
1. I think this is the fault of both the printer and whoever ultimately
supplied the files. This is a failure of multiple parties to
communicate.
2. The default position when sending materials to be printed by a
printer is to assume they know jack diddly squat about color management
and embedded profiles. If you're going to send jobs that require
embedded profiles for the job to be printed correctly, you're BEGGING
for a disaster.
3. The default position is that you get a contract proof. If you're not
getting one, then the party who says "we don't need it" or "we don't
want to pay for it" or "it will cost too much" or "there's no time for
one" is the ONLY one who gets to write out the check for the failed
job. And actually, even that's getting off too easy. I think toes and
fingers should be removed if you're going to forego a contract proof
because of cost. The vast majority of cases where a proof was not
pulled are based on really lame excuses.
4. A printer's responsibility is to:
a.) Have good process control so their press condition, whatever it
is, is consistent.
b.) Supply or recommend a profile they know makes suitable separations
for their print condition OR
c.) Accept files with embedded profiles, and properly separate
themselves.
The key point in the current context is b and c. Printers unwilling to
do either of these things should not be used. Decent quality work can't
be expected without a decent separation and SOMEONE has to do it.
So the question to ask the printer, is the one that will answer whether
they will supply information so you can make decent separations, or if
they will accept jobs requiring they do the separating. Chances are
it's not the latter. And if they can't give you recommendations on how
to separate, it's time to find a new printer, or accept that you're
working with a low quality, unsophisticated printer. Maybe they're
cheap and that's why you're using them, but I've worked with very
inexpensive printing companies who had determined the U.S. Sheetfed
Coated v2 profile worked well for them, and use good process control
measures to ensure it.
5. From one point of view I think all parties should eat a percentage
of this job. No one should get caught holding the bag because it was a
collective failure to prepare and process the job correctly. But
legally, if there was no contract proof these are the sorts of things
that happen.
Phil, in the future you need to send your OWN proof to your customer.
At the very least this is what YOU intended it to look like. If your
customer is going to be so cheap and dense as to not get a contract
proof then that's their own fault, and isn't your responsibility. It
might not be a bad idea for you to have the customer sign off on it.
And document how you got the proof to look the way it is (what are the
source and destination profiles, print settings, RIPs used, media used,
and your contact information in case there are questions). Your
customer might rationally say "well I didn't know he had prepared it
this way" if you don't document how you prepared the files.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
-------------------------------------------------------------
Co-author "Real World Color Management, 2nd Edition"
Published by PeachPit Press (ISBN 0-321-26722-2)
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