Problem colors after exporting (cmyk/rgb)

[stephane_fr]

Hello everybody.


I have a problem, - a classical problem if I may say - , when exporting a new little document I am working on these days.

It is a matter of the famous rgb -> cmyk question. But what I don't understand is that I didn't found this problem in my previous
and bigger project, where I treated more than 65 colors (here I have only 5).


Here, when I export a work in Xara, using around 5 or 6 colors, that are all in cmyk mode in my workspace, (I mean
in the color editor), I have the result of a "big discoloration". As my colors are in cmyk mode, I don't understand why this ?

Here are the pictures :
- The first one shows what should be the correct colors.
- The 2nd and 3rd show the "discolored" ones after exporting...


My export options are as usual 300 dpi, PDF/X, cmyk mode, ...

I had in the past better results when treating my colors in rvb mode. That's what I don't understand...
Previously, only a part of the colors where created/edited in the cmyk color mode : the blacks and the whites.
And main of the others remained in RVB.
Of course when I exported these works, I had a few changes. But it was ok for my tastes... (I use very few
"flash colors, so the transition from rvb to cmyk was never "aggressive").

So what did I do wrong in my preparation ?
Should I forget the cmyk color mode of the color editor ?


(I forget to precise, if useful, that I have always checked the "show printer colors" on "screen colors". On previous works, and on this one too.)

[gwpriester]

RGB color space has a much wider gamut (number of colors) than does CMYK. Many of the very bright vibrant colors you see on the screen cannot be reproduced in CMYK. For this reason, CMYK color generally appears dull and muted compared to RGB color.

You can get an idea of how colors will look in CMYK. In the Window menu, select Show Printer Colors > Simulate Print Colors. This is a closer approximation of how colors will look when printed in CMYK.

[stephane_fr]

Unfortunatly it is not so simple.

As I said before : I did my previous works in RVB mode in Xara and of course there is allways a little discoloration. But not as big as the one I showed here.

I'll get and show another example in a few minutes...

[stephane_fr]

Here is it :

The first picture is the one into xara, in rvb mode.

The second is the same work, in pdf/cmyk mode, opened in Photoshop.
Here, the green are little darker, especially the one with the star, in the middle of the page.
As you can see, the differences are really "soft", compared to the ones of my first post.

I don't understand why...

[gwpriester]

Maybe this will be more helpful RGB and CMYK Color in Offset Printing Process

[stephane_fr]

The problem comes when I create my colors in CMYK mode.

If I do not (if I treat RGB colors in Xara, then export in CMYK-pdf), the results are ok.
But if I treat CMYK colors in Xara, then export in CMYK-pdf, I have this horrible result.

So I am asking myself : why should I loose some time to create CMYK colors in Xara ?


(I don't even speak of the Show Printer Colors > Simulate Print Colors : in my experience, what you see
in that mode don't have anything to do with the print documents you can get from the printers)

[gwpriester]

So I am asking myself : why should I loose some time to create CMYK colors in Xara?

My advice is work in RGB, and export to PDF in CMYK.

Adobe Illustrator is set up to work in CMYK color space. Xara is set up to work in RGB color space. So, as you have discovered, it makes more sense to work in the native color environment.

[graphicsfactory]

The color shift, may be more prevalent with some colors then others. Because some will be more out of gamut then others. My advice would be to work in the RGB color space, but keep in mind the limitation of true CMYK. More often than not, it is better to let the printer convert the documents to CMYK. They will be more prepared to handle the color shift, because, they will know what settings are needed.

[Albacore]

Two ways to do this and both just Xara's RGB screen colour mode and export to PDF. Why wait to the final export to get the surprise! Why not just export your colour palette as small rectangles with of course as you say simulate printer colours switched on and see what the output is like in Acro, Pro would be the best but reader is OK. As Mike states above some colours are worse than others, dark reds and greens are bad, when it comes to maroons then working in RGB is just a guess. The next solution is to work to a known colour palette, you construct a colour wheel with about 100 known colours with their values and get a wet copy of that and only use these colours. This method means again there are no surprises when you output to PDF and if I was in your shoes I would buy a cheap CMYK laser printer for your desktop again to cut out much of the guess work.