colour creation difference

**adwb** · 27 August 2007, 03:36 PM

Please can anyone tell me why if a draw a block with a fill colour of C100 M90 Y0 K0 in Xara extreme 3.2 it is very obviously visualy a totaly different shade of blue from one drawn using the same values in photoshop or illustrator?
I dont know if you are aware of the Genopal software but using that to check the colours the values are then shown to be different by value as well as opticaly. I have attached screen shots which show the coulours as defined by the programs and I hope you will be able to see what I mean.
thes reason for the question is which is the correct interpretation of the values C100 M90 Y0 K0 ??
regards
Alistair

**Egg Bramhill** · 27 August 2007, 05:18 PM

Alistair,

All monitors work in RGB colour. CMYK is used for printing on paper. Therefore programs use ways of trying to interpret the difference. But it is just that, an interpretation. Xara has the "Show Print Colours" option, I'm not sure what Illustrator has but I believe it runs in a default printer colour type option but the 2 will be different.

Someone with a lot more knowledge re printing will no doubt be along shortly to answer better than I did.

Meanwhile the 2 images you had attached totalled 3.5Mb's! Please try to keep your images sizes (and widths) down to a reasonable size

Say below 100Kb's and 600-700 pixels wide.

**Albacore** · 27 August 2007, 11:36 PM

Hi Alistair,
I don't want to sound rude or impolite but I don't see how you get the colour change with your other programme? I drew rectangle in XPro, expoted it as PDF with default settings for PDF X/.. then opened it up in Illy drew another rectangle in Illy with same values can you see any difference. I will gladly post the Xara file if you want but can't see any difference between the two and I really cant see how you achieved the difference unless you sampling from the screen colours and that is silly cos as you know monitors change the output from the screen for one model to another unless you spend a fortune on both hardware and software to calibrate our monitor. As you know both Xara and Illy have the ability to give you a rough idea on how the drawing will print but unless you calibrate your monitor regular you can't compare with a eyedropper colour sampler. Read the help file on colour handling in Xara and this will give you a better understanding on how all Xara products deal with colour and please read the part on CMYK as xara deals with this colour mode differently than Illy. Also please dowload CMYK template from the Xone if your are using this CMYK output as your main colour mode. This is the third post in a couple of days with members not reading and understanding how this programme deals with CMYK.

**remi** · 28 August 2007, 07:29 AM

Originally Posted by Albacore

This is the third post in a couple of days with members not reading and understanding how this programme deals with CMYK.

I agree with you, Peter. But in the end it's a strong sign, that the CMYK processes within Xara Xtreme are not solved in the best way (from the view of the user). But unfortunately I'm sure, that we will never see an own (strict) CMYK mode within Xara Xtreme...

Remi

**Albacore** · 28 August 2007, 09:47 AM

I agree with what you are saying Remi but with the ripping software used today at the printers there can be a mixture of RGB and CMYK in a single document. Many of the high quality images that you see in quality books are done this way as long as the out of gamut colours are corrected and the correct colour profiles are used no or limited losses can be seen by both viewer and the photographer that took the pictures. So if any printer states to you it must be all done in CMYK find a new printer they are just being lazy.

**jclements** · 28 August 2007, 02:06 PM

adwp:

Do you have "Windows > Show Printer Colors > Simulate Print Colors" turned on
and your Color Units at Percent; "Utilities > Options > Units > Color Units = Percent"?

**adwb** · 28 August 2007, 04:23 PM

Thank you for the replies and apologies for the file sizes, perhaps I did not make my query clear.
What I do not understand is that regardless of colour description be it CMYK or RGB or HEX if a given value for any colour is chosen and used as a fill colour in Xtreme and then you use the same values for photoshop or illustrator as a fill colour then there is a marked difference in the colour shade between the two brand of software using same computer and screen.

I hoped I had demonstrated that by showing the screen shots with the colour values [which are the same] yet the shade is clearly not the same.

I was wondering why this occours and which colour is the more accurate?

Trying the print colour option in Xtreme while it changes the shade, [and they still don't match] is in essance on a guide to printer out put and printer colour out put is not what I am questioning.
It just seems odd that using the same value to describe to software what colour you want should produce different results in top class drawing programs.

**Egg Bramhill** · 28 August 2007, 05:53 PM

Alistair,

As I said in my first reply, monitors work in RGB colour space. Xtremes default colour space is RGB. Illustrators default colour space is CMYK. There is no colour difference between Xtreme & Illustrator if you compare apples with apples in RGB colour space. If there was you'd quickly notice it when designing graphics for web pages where the graphic needs to match the page background etc.

Both programs CMYK colours is an estimation of how that value will look in print, thus the difference between a CMYK Illustrator file and an Xtreme CMYK file with "Show printer colours" turned on. They're only each programs estimation. The difference should not be apparent on a printed copy.