CMYK and Bitmaps

**corsair** · 07 March 2006, 06:40 PM

Hi,
I've been searching and reading up on CMYK, but still have a problem - photos. I've been doing a prospectus for my wife's school and the Printers don't like it. they don't want a TIFF they want ai. We can't run to buying Adobe Illustrator. I've tried exporting as an .ai and as an .eps. The Printers are moaning that the text isn't truly black, and that the pictures are dull, well CMYK seems to do that to pictures. Is there any way to keep the colour in photos when you're having to work in CMYK?
Cheers
Fraser

**jclements** · 07 March 2006, 07:18 PM

Any you are not able to resave your CMYK picture to RGB color space?

**corsair** · 07 March 2006, 08:07 PM

Nope, the printers want CMYK.

**RedWombat** · 07 March 2006, 08:42 PM

I would get a different printer. They seem to be missing some crucial customer service skills. Unwilling to go the extra mile for their customers. I'm sure you could find a printer willing to work with you or at the very least help you solve your problem.

**jens g.r. benthien** · 07 March 2006, 09:36 PM

black text: select your text, click the color editor, select cmyk, set cmy values to 0, only k to 100% or 255.

however, it might be that they use a digital printing process - which they should tell you. then they can give you the 'correct' values for black, which is called 'built black' and could have values like i.e.

C- 40%
M- 20%
Y- 5%
K- 100%

these values depend on the equipment they use for the digital printing...

and if they don't know what you are talking about, check for another printer, really.

**corsair** · 08 March 2006, 06:24 AM

Thanks guys,
A lot of the problem is communication - they don't speak English, I don't speak Czech, and my liason with them who does, isn't a graphics person...but she, and I, are learning fast. I'll find out how they do their blacks.

I grew up with bits of paper, key lines and hand it over to the print room for separations! Didn't realise how easy it was then...if painfully slow.

This just leaves the photos! How can I get them to look better in CMYK? Any ideas?
Regards
Fraser

**raccoon2** · 11 March 2006, 11:56 AM

Hi
I own a professional printing and Graphic Design Company.
This printing company you are using sounds useless, most printing shops accept
Adobe, Corel Files, and most printing companys prefer PDF, which we find corelDRAW does this best, as Adobe Acrobat is expensive for the home user.
Regarding CYMK photos, that is wrong all photos should be printed in RGB.
We print on our wide format printers all graphics as CMYK and photos at 300dpi in RBG, and have perfect results every time, if you print your photos in CMYK they will loose colour and look washed out. we have a huge client base and print commerical banners and prints, my advice find a new printing company.

**jens g.r. benthien** · 11 March 2006, 03:53 PM

Well, appears to me you are one of the few savvy printers who know how to manage a RIP and the rest of his tools.

**Harry W.** · 30 June 2006, 09:24 AM

Hello raccoon2.
Quote "We print on our wide format printers all graphics as CMYK and photos at 300dpi in RBG, and have perfect results every time".

I am puzzled - RGB and CMYK color space being used as the input at the same time!
What file format do you ask for so that you can do that?
Thanks
Harry

**Charles Moir** · 30 June 2006, 10:17 PM

If you deliver your work as a PDF file, then you have complete control over what colours are used and can include both RGB and CMYK in the same file.

Bitmaps will be RGB and should retain their brightness (their RIP will do the separation of that). And then for coloured objects and text you can define them to be whatever RGB or CMYK colour you require. And defining 'black' to have some cyan and magenta values as well as 100% black, will give a very rich deep black, as Jens says.