pdf test lets try

**behzad** · 14 August 2006, 06:07 PM

I would not go about judging my colors on screen. A good monitor "I like viewsonic" and the color settings i talked about before does the trick for me. Also pick one printer and work with them, have pantone and cmyk swatch booklets and thats about it. Oh if your printer the one next to your computer prints close to what is on screen helps too for showing clients.

The rest is all gamble.

**jamesmc** · 14 August 2006, 06:21 PM

Originally Posted by Jon G

I wish it would be so easy - my monitor is calibrated, and quite recently. What did you check the pdf with?

Anyway monitor calibration shouldn't affect this at all, maybe Adobe Reader just can't display CMYK colours properly? The problem is that neither Xara's Show printer colours or normal RGB view is even close to the color I get in the pdf.

(Obviously lack of skills is the main culprit here :-( )

Because you said "viewing" the screen. I didn't detect any significant difference "viewing the screen."

Your not going to get very far comparing colors in a screen environment without a color profiler. Certainly not comparing colors with different programs because most programs are not set up to handle calibrated color profiles.

CMYK has to do with ink. That's ink, the wet stuff, the stuff that goes on paper. Without an ICC compliant importer and exporter you won't know what you have. It would be all guess work.

And because CMYK has to do with ink, you can get varied results from the type of paper it is printed on to the the lighting you are viewing the image.

However, if the color profile is sampled by the printer from a solid color profile generated by an ICC program export, that's as close as your going to get.

Guessing what is on the screen without color profiler is a waste of time you can't do it.

About as close as we can come to true colors is in a certified physical chemistry laboratory with sensitve colorimeters and spectrographometers. Of course you won't get color values like CMYK, RGB, maroon or whatever. What you will get is frequency values and all sorts of scientific clip clop on how light affects the thing we perceive as color.

I suddenly have an urge for neopolitan ice cream and the wearing of hip boots. Good luck on this PDF thing.

**Egg Bramhill** · 14 August 2006, 11:14 PM

Originally Posted by abligh

Is this not the "Xtreme is not showing printer colours" problem? IE Xtreme is not showing a colour corrected image on screen whereas Acrobat is. I can't remember whether Xtreme has "show print colours" or whether that's just on Xara X.

Alex

Alex,

Xtreme does have a 'Show printer colours' feature but this value isn't even close to the pdf.

This is a bit of an on going item that was started by Jon. LINK. He posted the file with the same background burgundy colour but it also had horizontal bars with linear fills from white to the same burgundy as the background colour. At first it looked like the linear fills were incorrect in the final pdf. After a bit of head scratching it was discovered the burgundy in the linear fill was correct but the background wasn't. Why was the linear fill's burgundy correct in the pdf but not the background rectangle?

**Albacore** · 14 August 2006, 11:22 PM

I would return to the tried and tested method of exporting as a TIFF and sending that to the printers or giving him the spot colour for the background. Caan I ask a stupid question Jon why 2 backgrounds?

**Jon G** · 15 August 2006, 03:22 AM

Thanks everyone for participating, it would surely be nice to solve this.

I sent the file as tiffs yesterday so jobwise this is not so urgent, just a curious problem. I would love to use always the same printer, but sadly clients have their own contracts. Yes maybe I should buy a colour swatch, I have one for newspaper prints as they are the only ones I've had issues with so far.

jamesmc, I am aware of the dangers of making comparisons on monitor screen, but do you really think this difference between Xara and final pdf is caused by lack of colour profiling?

Is red a special colour in CMYK world? I'm sure I've never experienced this big a difference between Xara and pdf.

- can I trust Adobe Reader (is the colour same in Illustrator?)

"2" backgrounds because I haven't figured out how to get Acrobat Elements to print the document background. And Xara print options only have "Visible foreground layers" and "All foreground layers". Anyway it has no effect on the end colour, tried with Xara's own pdf export.

(This red is btw ugly as hell in my opinion but that is what they wanted

)

Jon

**remi** · 15 August 2006, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by Jon G

"2" backgrounds because I haven't figured out how to get Acrobat Elements to print the document background. And Xara print options only have "Visible foreground layers" and "All foreground layers". Anyway it has no effect on the end colour, tried with Xara's own pdf export.

This is the explanation from Xara Xtreme's Help:

"Foreground and Background Layers

There are two types of layer - Foreground and Background. Background layers always sit behind the foreground layers. Background layers never print so are ideal for pictures you want to copy or backgrounds you only want visible on the screen."

Regards,
Remi

**abligh** · 15 August 2006, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

This is a bit of an on going item that was started by Jon. LINK. He posted the file with the same background burgundy colour but it also had horizontal bars with linear fills from white to the same burgundy as the background colour. At first it looked like the linear fills were incorrect in the final pdf. After a bit of head scratching it was discovered the burgundy in the linear fill was correct but the background wasn't. Why was the linear fill's burgundy correct in the pdf but not the background rectangle?

I'm not sure if I've fully caught up or understood the problem. But the following look like useful tips (some posted here, some not)
* If your image has colours specified in CMYK, it needs to be converted to RGB to display. If the RGB conversion is not the same on two apps, it will look different on screen.
* RGB values can also look different in screen between two apps, when one or both of them are adjusting for printer colours. Essentially they are converting to CMYK and back again (slightly more complicated than that as the monitor profile plays a part too), but if the profiles are different, you will see differences.
* Gradfills (other than between 2 CMYK colours I think) and transparency are carried out in RGB space. That means that if you see a gradfill or transparent area which perfectly matches the background on the monitor (when not showing print colours), it may NOT match the background on export. That's because the gradfill or transparent-covered area will be specified in RGB space, and the surrounding colours in CMYK space. So you can think of this as an RGB colour and a CYMK colour that match using Xtreme's conversion, but won't match using another party's conversion. This seems to me to be a likely problem in this case. You would need to export the entire thing in ONE colour space (either CMYK or RGB). I don't think Xtreme has the option to do this in CMYK space (you really want a PDF with CMYK bitmaps in, not RGB ones, which I think requires Xara X). You can fix this a number of ways, including working entirely in RGB space (or HSV which is the same for these purposes), and printing the whole thing as an RGB bitmap to a PDF printer driver (rather than doing an export), printing to Postscript, overlaying the area concerned with a 1% transparent feathered shape in roughly the same colour as the background OR (going the other way) exporting the whole thing as a CMYK TIFF (which I think Xtreme can do).
* Background layers don't print
* There is an interesting "feature" with gradfills (I think this applies to PS only). They appear to be banded on screen (e.g. in ghostview and if converted to a PDF), but don't print banded on non-contone (i.e. screened) printer devices. This is because Xtreme (arguably) calculates the banding wrong for contoned output devices.

Alex

**Jon G** · 15 August 2006, 11:04 AM

Yes! Thanks for the clarifying answer - I think this is the answer to the gradient problem:

"You would need to export the entire thing in ONE colour space (either CMYK or RGB). I don't think Xtreme has the option to do this in CMYK space (you really want a PDF with CMYK bitmaps in, not RGB ones, which I think requires Xara X). You can fix this a number of ways, including working entirely in RGB space (or HSV which is the same for these purposes), and printing the whole thing as an RGB bitmap to a PDF printer driver (rather than doing an export)"

...and also to the issue that I've previously had great results printing with Acrobat and letting it handle the CMYK colours. I checked, and I've this far only used RGB colours. Only flipped to "Show printer colours" to adjust them, but never hassled with CMYK model. Hardly the orthodox method, but I will stick to that instead of messing with CMYK values in Xara - it seems that is the reason for the colour difference, RGB->CMYK seems better handled by Acrobat than CMYK-CMYK.

I saw the print proofs some hours ago and they were ok, got the red they wanted and no visible softness from using tiff (600dpi). Next time I'll use pdf for easier handling - opening huge tiffs is slow and Acrobat Elements accepts downloadable print job specs for best results.

Thanks everybody.

Jon

**remi** · 15 August 2006, 12:34 PM

I think, there is a little bit confusion about this mismatching colors, but this is a well known bug in Adobe Reader.

Perhaps Adobe would say, this is a feature, but Adobe Reader switches into CMYK mode and doesn't convert the CMYK colors to your RGB screen. Instead, Adobe Reader applies a default color management profile to your PDF file when displaying. This profile makes CMYK colors look darker.

A simple test:

Create a rectangle in Xara Xtreme.
Choose the CMYK color model in Xtreme's color editor.
Set the following CMYK fill color C 20,4%, M 96,5%, Y 72,2%, K 18%
Export your drawing in a PDF file.
Open your PDF file with Adobe Illustrator. The colors in Adobe Illustrator are correct (C 20,39%, M 96,47%, Y 72,16%, K 18,04%).
Create a new drawing in Adobe Illustrator with a rectangle and the same colors.
Export the Adobe Illustrator drawing in a PDF file.
Open both PDF files with Adobe Reader: The colors doesn't match the colors from Adobe Illustrator or Xara Xtreme, but both colors are the same (wrong) colors.

You'll find the PDF files in the attachment.

also important: Adobe Reader doesn't convert CMYK colors to RGB colors, if you print the file with your desktop (RGB) printer.

Regards,
Remi

**Egg Bramhill** · 15 August 2006, 02:14 PM

Alex / Remi,

Thanks for these insights. I'm only glad I never have to do any printing!

* Gradfills (other than between 2 CMYK colours I think) and transparency are carried out in RGB space.

This would explain the difference between the horizontal grad. fills & the background colour and why changing the background flat fill to a false graduated fill appeared on screen to resolve the problem.