CMYK support in Xtreme - yes or no ? - *confused*

[beatz01]

Hi,

did a search for "cmyk" but am even more confused than before.

Soo....does Xtreme support cmyk or not ?

I don't mean spot colors (i'm aware that option was removed) nor seperation (also aware that was removed) but simply if i have turned on the "Edit local colors in cmyk color model" option and maybe in addition am using the cmyk template from xarazone - will Xtreme export properly to any format (that supports cmyk by it's native format of course) in CMYK or not ?

And please, i'm not talking about the "you can always export to a cmyk tif" "solution" - that's a joke in my view.

I'm really interested to know if Xtreme fully supports CMYK (minus Pantone and seperations) or not as half of the threads i have been wading through say it doesn't support it but still there is the "edit in cmyk color model" option, right ?!

Any help is appreciated

[Charles Moir]

Yes Xara Xtreme fully support CMYK colours. You just define colours of objects in CMYK mode and they will be CMYK values and exported as such to those formats that support CMYK, such as PDF.

And this means, for example, if you know the CMYK values of Pantone process colours (say you have a Pantone colour swatch that shows the CMYK values) then you can accurately output Pantone process colours. PDF is probably the most useful way of actually printing CMYK colours, although it should work to any printer that support CMYK as well.

And yes we can export CMYK TIFFs as well, but I'm not sure why you regard that as a joke, as it's a highly valuable feature, for those that require it.

Any thread that says Xara does not support CMYK is wrong. I suspect they are meaning 'Xara Xtreme does not do colour separations' which is not really the same thing. (And technically producing a CMYK TIFF is a process of producing colour separations as well, just not direct to a printer).

[gwpriester]

I'm a bit confused by your comment about CMYK TIFF being a joke as well.

I created some CMYK colors (see attached), exported the colors as a CMYK TIFF, opened the TIFF in Photoshop CS 2 and sampled each of the colors. The colors are 100% bang on.

They may not look the same as they do in Xtreme which is because Xtreme's default color space is RGB. But if you switch to Window > Show Printer Colors > Simulate Print Colors, then the colors will display more accurately in terms of printed CMYK colors.

Is that what is causing the confusion?

Gary

[beatz01]

Thanks Charles for the answer

As for the "joke" thing:

Of course the option to export to tiff is not a joke by itself, what i meant is while searching through the threads i saw that tiff-answer a few times as a response/solution to the missing color separation issue and i thought if that's going to be the response for missing cmyk support as well *that* would be a joke.

I admit i should have expressed myself more clearly

[beatz01]

Thanks Gary as well for the quick response.

What actually caused my confusion was the number of threads where some posts said Xtreme would not support cmyk but now it's clear people actually meant the separation part or/and the missing Pantone options.

So no confusion over here anymore

[gwpriester]

Here's an example of the same colors displayed in RGB and Simulate Printer Color (CMYK).

Gary

[beatz01]

I'm confused again:

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showpost...8&postcount=18

Quote from Charles:

"Actually there is a way of converting everything to CMYK in Xara Xtreme. Simply export as a CMYK TIFF file."

Now doesn't that sound exactly like exporting to TIFF is the *only* option available when wanting to export in CMYK ?!

Ahh geez i wish someone could give me a clear answer.

[Charles Moir]

Yes that IS the only option if you want to convert everything to CMYK, but that's not what you asked.

You asked if Xtreme supported CMYK and it does, and RGB. But that's quite different to wanting to convert to convert RGB objects and data into CMYK. That process is called a 'separation' or '4 colour separation' because it separates RGB colours into the 4 CMYK values. And in Xara Xtreme (not X1) the only way separating a whole drawing into CMYK is via CMYK TIFF export (or using some third party utility such as Acrobat 7).

If you want to convert an individual RGB object into CMYK you can do that in the colour editor, as described earlier.

So I'm trying to make the answers as clear as possible. I suspect you're too used to the Adobe model where 'CMYK' mean everything is either ALL CMYK or ALL RGB and never the two shall meet. That isn't how Xara works. In Xara you can have CMYK in the same document as RGB. You sort of have to un-learn Adobe restrictions and ways of working.

(And I have to say this is one of the reasons that we removed colour separations from Xara Xtreme, as it's pretty clear few people understand what can be a very complex area. You only need to visit a few Adobe forums and it can be rather obvious that relatively few, sometimes even very experienced professionals, understand basic colour science - which is no criticism. Frankly no users should ever have to understand such complex techno babble, and it's a sad reflection on our industry that users are exposed, in the case of Adobe product, overly exposed to the whole CMYK side of things. Most users would just like colour to work out of the box and not have to understand anything about CMYK colour science - and that is our goal.)

[gwpriester]

I also exported a PDF file with the same CMYK colors and opened the file in Illustrator CS 2 and sampled each of the colors. The CMYK percentages where bang on again. The file also converted to PDF/X1 and PDF/X3 with no extra work in Acrobat 7.

Gary

[beatz01]

Thanks both of you for your answers.

I'm still confused

Ok, let me put it in different words:

Say i start with the cmyk template, create all my artwork in cmyk, be careful not to touch the RGB editing option the slightest and say it's all vector, no bitmaps - will i be able to export it to .ai and (now comes the important part) when opening it in Illustrator will Illu tell me CMYK?

I'm not talking about the option to *separate* a document to 4c, all i want is group all objects within Xtreme assumed they have all individually been created/edited in CMYK, export the stuff to whatever i want and when opening that exported file within the respective application it should show CMYK as the color space and not RGB in any way.