Printed colors way different from monitor color

[eddieirvin]

Hello! I'm new here, so excuse me if I posted in the wrong place. I have an issue that I think you all would be able to shed some light on. I printed a file through the online Fedex platform and went to pick it up, and the colors are a lot darker than my original file. I've dealt with this before in other print shops.

With a different print shop, I had the same issue, but I was able to ask them to try printing with an "RGB profile" instead of a "CMYK profile" through their print software and the colors came out beautifully.

This still makes no sense to me, and I don't know how to prepare my files properly when I have absolutely no control over the print profile (like when I'm printing at Fedex). What the heck am I doing wrong? Is there a way for me to prepare my file so that even if they print with "CMYK profile" out of indesign or whatever software they're using, that my colors will stay the same? The "Color representation" in the details section of file properties says sRGB.

I'm a professional photographer so my screen is calibrated with the Spyder 2 (so I know the colors are right on my screen). PLEASE HELP! I would appreciate any advice. I am so confused and so frustrated, I wish there was an easy button.

[Egg Bramhill]

Welcome Eddie. This question is raised many times. For a recent response see:
http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...color-printing

There are many more threads re this matter, just search google for "Talkgraphics CYMK printing"

With any luck Albacore will be along to answer your question in more depth.

[eddieirvin]

You're the best! Man, a response 8 minutes after I post. I really appreciate it. Googling now

[mwenz]

Your calibrated monitor doesn't mean much in Xara applications as it is not a color-managed application.

Further compounding the issue, FedEx does not use calibrated printers. I don't know of a single quick printer that does. If they did, you could get a profile from them for your work...but again, Xara is not color managed. The best you could do would be to install a color profile (if one existed from FedEx et al) for use when a PDF is generated.

One issue with the PDF route is one has to choose between flattening transparency (using only a PDF/X profile) in order to use a "custom" color profile in a PDF, or leave transparency (more) live (PDF 1.7 for instance) and not using a "custom" color profile. Now, the Prepress tab in the PDF export explicitly says either a CMYK color output or a PDF/X profile. The reality is that only a PDF/X profile will include an embedded color profile.

Another gotcha in using Xara products (I use Xara Designer Pro) in CMYK output is that for 100% Black, you need to slide the K slider down a touch and move it back to 100% else you will output a rich black.

Once you get past the these quirks, I have great success in PDFs maintaining color accuracy. Meaning that what I design hits the PDF exactly the same as intended. I do little digital printing, mainly the stuff I do is output to film. But I have done a few books where many of the illustrations were created in XDP and printed digitally. But that was with a printer using calibrated equipment. They came out within the tolerance allowed for the difference in printing methods--digital is not and cannot rival offset printing for accuracy.

Mike

[mwenz]

Oh yeah. Forgot something I was going to put up above when talking about Xara not being color managed.

For Xara to include color management, they would actually need to do what other applications do that are color managed, and that is have document color modes. That way the RGB and CMYK color profiles can be attached/used for either of the document's color mode. While I am hopeful Xara would add such capability, I am not holding my breath. It would be quite a divergence from the be all, end all of the "everything and the kitchen sink" application that they have tried to make. Don't get me wrong, I love XDP. I have learned to work with and around its emphasis, its bent towards all things RGB and web.

Oh, also. While I have never bothered, you can prepare (perhaps there is one here) a PDF of swatches and have your local quick print run it off on their printer(s). You'll then see the color shift their equipment will introduce. I have one mostly made but lost a bit of care about finishing it.

Mike

[Albacore]

If you have a Costco near you try them as these are the only digital printers that I know whose machine are calibrated every week. On you Spyder 2 calibration that means your are producing your own ICC colour profiles so that the white on your screen is exactly the same white as your paper but you have to have the Pro ver.to adjust the RGB values if my memory is correct. That's the way I use to check mine when I was working in a newspaper and also we had special light to view any wet copies that we made. With those profiles we could import into PS and ID and be sure they were right and as you are a photographer you must at least have PS Elements to work from. Taking files to a printer that you don't know is a real bummer as most don't even bother to check their output of your file so if I was in your shoes I would pop into my local digital print shop and explain to him your problem. They will now take trouble over your print but may charge a few pence/cents more than Fed-Ex as they might switch off their colour management and use your profile. Again I am using my memory here and when you used your Spyder and you saved the profile it you have save it with a name like SyderExpress2 if you did not give it your own name. I found using their patches and comparing the supplied same patch .tiff file worked well. The bit that didn't work for me when I brought it home now and again was greyscale my Canon S9000 wouldn't couldn't print B & W prints!