A Factling About Personal Printing

[Gare]

We had an interesting back-and-forth today about Xara Xtreme's Color Gallery and the topic of spot color was mentioned.

Here's a semi-related tip for anyone who needs faithful output to a home inkjet printer:

Although many of the affordable inkjets such as Canon use CMY and K inks and some have additional Photo Cyan and Photo Magenta, you DO NOT use CMYK color space for colors you choose, nor do you use a CMYK-based TIFF image if any in your design.

You use regular RGB colors, or choose from the HSV color model—RGB and HSV use an identical color space, the domain in which color can be expressed.

Why? It only makes sense that if you print to CMYK inks, you'd use the CMYK color model and space.

No. There is internal circuitry in almost all inkjet printers you can buy today that convert RGB color space to CMYK. You don't alter it, you can't even change the circuitry (unless you're knowledgeable or daring). The printer is actually expecting RGB color space, and you're not going to get color accuracy if you feed it CMYK data.

You can, however, fine-tune your prints if your inkjet accepts ICC color profiles. for example, my el cheapo combo Canon scanner/printer will indeed take in and accurately print images that have been tagged to sRGB and Adobe RGB color spaces. But this might be a moot point because Xara Xtreme doesn't use color profiles—it always presumes sRGB, the official color space of the Web.

My Best,

Gary

[440bx]

Hi Gary,

I think you've opened a can of worms

Here is a problem I've experienced and, I think most everyone that has done any semi-serious printing has experienced as well.

I create a logo, print it on my Canon printer, everything looks great. I create a PDF/X, print it again (just to make sure), everything still looks great.

I send the PDF/X to a print house, I get the logo in colors that are dull and noticeably darker than what I got at home. The result is IMO not usable.

Is it possible to get out of my Canon printer output that is at least close to what will come out of the print house's printer ?

I thought about using Pantone but the process guides are expensive and I don't use them often enough to justify their cost. I have not been able to figure out an alternative solution.

Suggestions are welcome and if they work I'll consider them treasures

Thanks,

John.

[steve.ledger]

440bx: Thread title A Factling About Personal Printing

...tip for anyone who needs faithful output to a home inkjet printer.

If you want to start a new discussion about your experience with your own files printed by commercial print houses, please open a new thread in an appropriate forum.

The purpose of PDF/x is explained here.

[Gare]

I disagree (not unusual), John: it is you who have taken a can opener to a package of DelMonte Nightcrawlers!

My ditty is on inkjets and personal printing, and although it seems that every time I write something on output, 23,000 more experienced pre-press people parachute down to contradict me—inkjet output bears almost no resemblance to commercial output. with the exception of extremely expensive inkjets that I don't consider to be garden-variety "home" models.

You will indeed get more lush, brilliant prints from an inkjet than from a commercial press, due to several factors: color space (sRGB is hard-coded into today's inkjets while presses use CMYK and now Hexachrome), paper reflectivity and brightness...it's like comparing apples to oranges.

If you need any sort of color consistency without investing in match prints before you do a run at a commercial printer, do a PDF whose color model is CMYK, not "Native" in Xara's tabbed Export boxes, and then look at it in a PDF reader.

Caveat is screen colors are a simulation, an approximation, because there is no way the RGB pixels on your monitor are going to be able to display subtractive CMYK pigments. It's like playing a flute sonata on a tuba, and telling the audience, "Well, okay, but try to imagine..."

If a gig is important, you ask for a match proof before letting the RIP rip. Chances are excellent you'll get something better than you see onscreen in Print Preview mode, and something a tad duller than an inkjet print. It also depends on the presses: I was fortunate enough to be able to afford the same press house that prints National Geo once, and not only were my match prints bang on with the run of press, but the final prints matched my screen design so closely I'm still gawking at the prints 10 years later.

My Best,

Gary

[440bx]

Thanks Gary.

Matching colors between dissimilar printers (home and commercial) is a nightmare that is beyond me. I'll search the forum to find how other people have dealt with the problem.

Thanks again,

John.