Monitor & CMYK Profiling

[Merlinski]

Hi

I'm doing more and more work intended for print, and if course this means CMYK and so avoiding the usual pitfalls of colour conversion and the differences between various printshop calibrations/printing hardware.

Are there any guides for someone like me as to setup of both monitor and cmyk profiles/workspace for cmyk print destined design?

Ir indeed why this and tricks that ensure I can minimise disappointment when the prints arrive and the colours are miles out lol

Cheers

Chris

[ernie-f]

Hi Chris,

the topic of color management is not quite so simple. Especially not when we work with two different color models.
On the one hand, we have additive color mixing on the screen and subtractive color mixing when printed on paper.
The separation into four printing colors makes things even more difficult.

I have been working in the graphic arts industry for around 48 years and to write all my expertise here would go beyond the scope of this article.
So I'll try to keep it simple.

You need a certain minimum equipment to be able to work with color accuracy:
1. monitor that covers at least the color gamut of sRGB
2. calibration device
3. Acrobat Professional
4. printed color charts (Pantone/HKS etc. for uncoated and coated paper)
5. the respective output color profile for the print shop, also called ICC color profile

Once your monitor has been calibrated, leave photos in RGB mode. All vector objects, areas and texts are determined in CMYK colors.
You need the color charts to a) determine the printed color effect and b) create the correct color values in your layout software.

When your layout is ready, write a print PDF with a stored ICC profile such as PSOcoated_v3.icc. Here, the ICC profile converts the RGB photos
to CMYK to match the paper, printing process identifier, etc. Ask the print shop to provide you with the ICC color profile used.

Now Acrobat Pro comes into play. Only with Acrobat Pro (or special software for the printing industry) can you simulate the print on the monitor
and evaluate the colors. It is clear that this is not 100% possible, but always remains a compromise due to the different color models.

In my opinion, these are the basics that need to be learned.

There is a lot more to color management and you will certainly stumble over one hurdle or another and make mistakes.
That's normal, because no master has fallen from the sky.

Servus Ernie