cmyk colour profiles - which to use??

HI,

I work as a designer within a publishing house and I supply files to a number of external printers.

Recently have had a number of issues ink limits from supplied Photoshop images and that they say we should not be exceeding there max. ink limit of 300%.

The problem I have is knowing which of Photoshop's numerous colour profiles to use as converting my layered images from profile to profile seems to dramatically alter the appearance and colour breakdown of the image.

This is a particularly an issue when converting images from supplied RGB to cmyk. Ultimately I need to be able to use a profile which converts the image to cmyk whilst maintaing the overall appearance, giving a good rich black in shadow areas (without major retouching or colour adjustment) and keeping the breakdown below 300%.

So which colour profile would you advise to be a good generic profile to work
with that would be accepted across a number of suppliers (primarily in UK)?

Any advice would be gratefully recieved.

Many thanks

you must use cmyk color space. that's the only way a press can print. If you supply rgb images you're making the pre-press techs convert to cmyk at the pre-flight stage (extra charges will occur) If you client approves color as rgb, they may be disappointed with cmyk proofs as well as the printing. So if you work in cmyk from the onset, no one will be surprised. Try to avoid supplying mixed cmyk, rgb and spot color in a file. Never use any other color profile such as lab or index. Your printer can usually provide you with their color profiles and pdf profiles, Most have them on their websites or their csr will provide them. If they don't, consider another printer. That ones in a time warp.

I believe barry1102 is referring to the profiles in Colour Settings, e.g Europe ISO Coated, Euroscale Coated etc (correct me if I’m wrong). I too would like some advise on this, if anyone has any.

to barry 1102. I read the question again. Then I read my reply again. It seems that the reply was to a different question altogether. Did you edit the question or am I simply going nuts? Anyway, I'll find out from a techy friend of mine what the differences between Euro inks and US inks are. But as far as converting from RGB to CMYK, there will always be some color loss. CMYK simply isn't as bright or intense as RGB and the 3/4 tones tend to flatten out especially if the color profile has a press gain built in. Having a 300% D-Max doesn't help either. Any advise I could possibly offer would be to build the files in CMYK and forget about RGB. That way you can compare apples to apples from the get go. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to explain to a customer why their color looks different on a printer's proof (especially Epson) than the soft proof that the designer submitted. If you absolutly require a higher 3/4 tone and shadow density, consider running on a single or 2 color press. You can also 'fudge' on the D-Max if the particular shadow areas are minimal (10% or less of the overall image)