RE: CMYK for photographers
RE: CMYK for photographers
- Subject: RE: CMYK for photographers
- From: Roger Breton <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2012 11:34:06 -0400
A chuck full of interesting questions. And you already received very good
replies from the other List members.
I like color, as a subject, because it is endless.
As far as Adobe is concerned, my take is that they don't want to be seen as
leaders in color reproduction matters. Which explains why, CS after CS
versions, SWOPv2 remains the default. Their intention is to get out of the
color way as much as possible. SWOPv2 is the default and is not to be seen
as an endorsement of anything, other than historic ties. (You would think?)
Terry Wyse once suggested that SWOP2006_C3 would make a better all-around
CMYK sort of blind output conditions. I wasn't in agreement back then but
now, I can see the value of this statement. I think converting to Coated #3
paper causes less than converting to Coated #5 paper, which isn't to say
that "thou shalt only use C3".
I like Andrew's stance that if the output conditions are not known then
don't do the conversion. That's a position with plenty of merit.
We scrupulously screen every job for color where I work. If a client
supplies proofs, they are compared to our proof for the given substrate the
job is running on. Easy for us to do since we have an extra bit of
information many don't have by the time their client require them to supply
CMYK imagery. All I can say is that, regardless of the choice of conversion,
the moment the chosen CMYK percentages hit some kind of viewable support,
whether "electronic", in the form of computer display monitor, or physical,
in the form of a proof on paper, then two things are bound to happen. Either
some live person looks at color or limit his or herself to content. Content
is easy to approve. If content is all that's approved at this stage, then
color is not important and will receive whatever treatment on press as
whoever is running the job is seeing fit. If color is important then it's a
different story. And a possibly complex one. Some people will look at color
on their screen and declare themselves satisfied with what they see. Some
people look at a printed proof and declare themselves satisfied. It can get
really nasty beyond this point.
Hopefully, someone will look at color with a critical eye somewhere along
the line. Hopefully. Yet, I've recently seen cases where an ISO Coated v2
proof came in the door and it virtually looked identical to a SWOP2006_C3
proof. There are many ways of generating hardcopy proofs, as many way as
there are printers, inks sets, instruments, proofing substrates, lighting
setups and viewers! So who's to say that, a priori, a given proof will not
matched or can not be matched or will be matched on a given press printing
conditions? And we have not started to include pressmen here. In my very
humble experience, what can be considered a match can be as wide as a
football field, depending on who's looking at the proof. Some client are
very demanding but most clients, including advertisers are far more relaxed
in what they will judge as acceptable color. There is a lot to be said about
that.
So, to conclude, I would personally tend not to use SWOPv2 as the default
because SWOPv2 represents an inherently yellow substrate and will render all
colors with that tint of yellow that they don't originally have, most
likely. I would tend to think that ISO Coated might be a better choice, but
again so is SWOP2006_C3.
Really, in a lot of printing conditions, we'd be surprised at how much of a
toss up is color.
Best / Roger
-----Original Message-----
From: colorsync-users-bounces+graxx=email@hidden
[mailto:colorsync-users-bounces+graxx=email@hidden] On
Behalf Of email@hidden
Sent: March-23-12 6:32 PM
To: email@hidden
Subject: CMYK for photographers
As a commercial photographer and color enthusiast I felt I had a good grasp
of RGB to CMYK workflows, that is, deliver RGB when possible so images can
be repurposed later.
Sometimes a client will demand CMYK files without offering any description
of the output conditions. In this case it seemed consensus was to convert to
SWOPv2 which is easy as it's the Photoshop default and most photographers
simply use image>mode>convert to CMYK. Many photographers who offer in house
conversions and proofs are also using SWOPv2 for a multitude of reasons.
Now I come to find out that things have changed quite a bit in the last few
years and press data beyond TR001 and new or refined specifications like
G7, GRACoL 7, SWOP 3 and 5 are all well known and accepted. And Lab data
too!
I've seen posted here that converting to SWOP2006grade3 is a much better
choice for unspecified CMYK web than SWOPv2 as it has better data from a
better run on a whiter paper that is more common. I've also read and seen in
colorthink that SWOPv2 has a similar white point as the SWOP2006grade5 which
is more yellow.
So should photographers who choose to convert to CMYK themselves who had
been using SWOPv2 change to the newer SWOP2006 profiles?
Does Adobe plan to change the default CMYK from SWOPv2 to a newer profile?
Along the same lines, I'm helping a friend setup an Epson 7900 proofing
edition with EFI XF 4.1. They send untagged PDF/X-1a documents to the RIP
from indesign CS3. We plan to set up the Epson with GRACoL certification and
the training videos suggest setting the "CMYK source" in EFI to
CoatedGRACol2006.icc
Does that mean the PDF/X-1a from indesign (and the included images) should
also be in the CoatedGRACol2006 space before it is sent to the RIP untagged?
And a final question, should photographers convert to CoatedGRACoL2006
instead of SWOPgrade3 for unspecified CMYK conversion or just stick with
SWOPv2 and pretend none of this happened?
TIA
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