Re: "Safe CMYK" workflows [was: Misleading Adobe Common Color Architecture]
Re: "Safe CMYK" workflows [was: Misleading Adobe Common Color Architecture]
- Subject: Re: "Safe CMYK" workflows [was: Misleading Adobe Common Color Architecture]
- From: Marco Ugolini <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2008 23:29:26 -0800
- Thread-topic: "Safe CMYK" workflows [was: Misleading Adobe Common Color Architecture]
In a message dated 1/10/08 4:36 AM, Todd Shirley wrote:
> I think there is still some confusion about the "safe CMYK" workflow
> in InDesign. First off - it works as advertised. It does not change
> CMYK numbers of CMYK elements whether they are native or imported,
> whether they have profiles embedded or not.
That's correct, Todd. I verified it by printing to PDF from InDesign CS3.
The CMYK numbers do remain exactly the same as those in the original file in
all cases -- as long as one is using a combination of "Composite Leave
Unchanged" in the "Output" tab and "No Color Management" in the "Color
Management" tab of InDesign's CS3's print dialog box.
> So if the the person outputting your files is using the safe CMYK settings,
> then you are NOT "leaving it to the prepress people to take your color numbers
> and apply them in unknown ways to the output, which could include reseparation
> as well" This is exactly what safe CMYK is meant to prevent.
"Safe CMYK" is no perfect insurance against incompetence. To make an
example, say that you (the production person in charge of preparing and
sending deliverables to the prepress people) had separated an untagged image
to profile A prior to giving it to the prepress house. You had done that
because that was your best bet given what you knew.
The people at the prepress house receive it. But, unbeknownst to you, it
turns out that your guess was off the mark (although you did do your best to
get the most correct information possible). That, say, is because the press
output conditions would be much more precisely described by profile B, which
a color-management-averse prepress house will not even be able to perceive
as a legitimate problem. "Profiles? What are those?"
In that scenario, the file you gave to the prepress house will look wrong on
the contract proof (in a manner similar to what would happen if you assigned
profile B to the untagged image). Once that happens, the "circle of blame"
usually starts, and the prepress house rarely admits to error. (Standard CYA
policy.) According to their version of facts, they were given "a bad file"
by YOU, and they are doing their best to remedy someone else's mistake
(YOURS).
Where things go from there can turn into a tangled and prickly affair.
Often, the prepress house will charge extra for the work they claim was
required to "match the colors" in accord with the client's intent. Extra
revenue that they shouldn't be rightfully getting, but often do.
> For many printers, the prepress people outputting from InDesign are
> right there in their own prepress department, and they don't want
> their operators, (the employees who are making PostScript files or
> PDFs out of InDesign) to have to make any decisions about color
> transforms. Usually that decision is made before the file gets to the
> operator, so they don't want a workflow where it is possible for the
> operator to change CMYK values.
But if the CMYK values should turn out not to be right for that specific
press output and the prepress house does not make a proper conversion to the
appropriate color profile, god only knows what will be done to your image
file and what substandard results may or will ensue.
> I don't think it really has much to do with weather a shop is color
> management savvy or not - Its just that many people don't want color
> management happening at the moment someone hits "print" in InDesign.
"Many people"? Which people exactly? Is that some kind of inviolable edict?
Reasonable people act reasonably, and according to the task at hand.
Sometimes one has to convert an image file, and in that case one had better
be sure that the conversion is done capably by capable hands. It should
always be about pursuing the best results possible -- not patching up
mistake after mistake, as too often is the case.
Marco Ugolini
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