Re: Who does the seperations? (Re: Profile Names and other suggestions)
Re: Who does the seperations? (Re: Profile Names and other suggestions)
- Subject: Re: Who does the seperations? (Re: Profile Names and other suggestions)
- From: email@hidden (Lee Blevins)
- Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2007 13:14:06 -0500
> I totally support the view that photographers who want to carry out
> their own conversions should get out onto the print shop floor, and get
> a good understanding of what goes on there. It's also a good education
> to see jobs through from start to finish, including signing off on the
> pass sheets, and being involved in the decisions leading up to that
> point. I started doing this over twenty-five years ago, and would not
> have any hesitation in pulling the plates on a job if I felt that the
> results were not going to happen.
All that pre-supposes that the photographer is in fact in control of the
project and in communication with the final use of the image.
An idea that is fading as fast as the scanner operator. Perhaps even
faster.
Today the majority of designers I come in contact with get their images
from online stock photo companies.
Fewer and fewer images are being contracted directly to photographers.
And when they are, their final use is not known. The desinger has not
yet decided on a printer or the image will be used in a variety of print
conditions, some of which don't need a CMYK image at all such as large
format inkjet.
I don't see any online stock photo companies supplying CMYK images.
For basically the same reasons that I don't think the photographer
should either.
I don't think the agencies or designers will want to keep going back to
the photographer for a new image each time they change printers.
The world of electronic imaging is changing at a fast pace.
More and more companies are shooting their own stuff inhouse and more
and more designers are using other sources of images.
Not to take the wind out of your sails but I don't think the role of the
photographer is the commanding role you might portray here.
The idea that it's the printer at fault for not providing a standardized
process that fits your predefined separation process just doesn't fly.
Try running and ad in 5 different magazines and then go get them all and
see if they look the same.
They won't. There are far too many variables to printing that SWOP can
characterize. You'd need a profile for every ink/press/paper combination
and then there'd still be more conditions that would affect it.
For my money the process of color separating is moving to the prepress
department simply because they have the skills and equipment to do it.
I accept that as a photographer you might feel that you are in more
control if you make the separation yourself and have been the victim of
bad prepress departments who had little knowledge of ICC and butcured
your image.
But I have also been the victim of photographers who refuse to
understand that the hues of their image are outside the gamut of the
process and can't seem to accept that nobody did anything wrong.
Recently I had to deal with an agency who had an ad shot by a
photographer who chose a lavender background for their image. We tried
to explain to them that they couldn't have chosen a worse color for CMYK
reproduction.
My point being that the photographer isn't being sought out by printers,
agencies and designers for advice on printing. You are not seen as the
consultant with all the answers.
You're a photographer. Your expertise is in taking pictures.
In the cases where you do make separations, I rarely see a proof
submitted.
If it's just a case of asigning a profile and selecting mode CMYK then
that is better done in the page layout application at print time. My own
preference is to let the page layout app do that now.
Indesign does a wonderful job of honoring emebdded profiles and dealing
with untagged images while converting to a destination space.
That way the designer can place the RGB images and have their PDFX1A
created on the fly.
In my opinion, that's the best workflow. It allows for re-purposing the
images for a variety of print conditions without creating a new copy of
the image.
But that workflow moves the separation process further downstream from
the photographer to either the designer or prepress department, where
IMHO it belongs.
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