cmyk template bewilderment

[stuseven]

. Having, since I began using and enjoying XaraLX,
been perplexed by the odd color shift apparent in color
prints... note, I've never had a problem simply viewing
my XaraLX pictures... today, for the first time, I downloaded
and used, apparently successfully, the CMYK.xar (zipped file)
which addresses this exact issue.

. After unzipping the zip file, I looked quickly at the xar
file inside... and almost gave up... totally empty... but then,
so is air "empty", until we look more closely(!)... and now my
question - because, while, again, I have just now returned from
the printer with a beautiful color-correct print of my XaraLX
drawing, I have no understanding at all of how this empty
looking CMYK.xar file did what it apparently did... all that I
noticed was, on opening this, the working screen itself seemed
to shift... this can't possibly be what "color space" means,
but thats all I noticed, although the result was extraordinary.
. Now, please, some knowledgeable xaralx user can explain
this briefly to me... what is going on when I work in this open
template ? To me, its just spooky that it does anything at all.
No complaints... just intrigued.

thanks

[Soquili]

Hi Stuseven,

Can you provide a link to where you downloaded the CMYK.xar file?

I think that was made by Minimiro, but I'm not sure until I can see the link and open the file.

[stuseven]

. Hi Soquili "Bill"... yep... Minimoro was the author... the file link is:

http://www.xarazone.com/CMYK.zip

. ...and I should mention, when that file is unzipped, you have a working
xar file. For some reason, even with all the mention this template gets...
and it does work... finding it with a search is a pain :-)

. Im just hoping you, or some other knowledgeable XaraLX user can
explain -how- this thing works !

[Odat]

I think the magic here is that the contents of the color gallery in a Xara document is saved as a part of the document. The standard Xara template documents all use the same set of colors. But the CMYK template created by Minimoro probably has replaced all of those standard colors with "pure" CMYK colors.

So if you use any of the colors from the color bar in your illustration, they end up being proper "pure" CMYK colors, instead of Xara or the Print company trying to convert RGB to CMYK, which usually results in some loss because the CMYK color gamut is smaller than that of RGB.

Just a guess, though.

[Soquili]

Hey Stu,

Thanks for the link. I'm at work now so I can only view the file on a Windows machine. Looking in the Color Gallery, Minimiro has redefined all the colors using CMYK values in place of the default RGB values. This essentially put the work area into CMYK color space.

Any drawing created using Minimiro's template will be in CMYK colour space so what you see is more close to a printers output.

Not sure if that answers you question. If not let me know and we can dig deeper, and possibly send a PM to Minimiro asking him to help us

EDIT: I see Odat answered while I was looking into the file and typing my reply.

[stuseven]

OK, and thanks to Odot and Soquili for responding...
that explanation makes complete sense, and as I said,
the template produces excellent results with prints.

cool :-)