Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: Box Brownie on February 17, 2007, 05:55:03 pm
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I have been wrestling with a dilemma - I have been researching getting some short run blank greetings cards made (note UK based) and my current normal workflow I stick with sRGB because I only post on the web or get prints made by labs that have the Fuji Frontier, both AFAIK use sRGB for the output profile.
My dilemma or should I say angst is that all commercial printers use CMYK, now it is my understanding that there is loss of colour when switching from sRGB to CMYK profile and I surmise that getting a proof each time will be costly *but* I read a comment that inkjet printers are CMYK. Is that correct? Yes, I know they print dots but have never considered that they are CMYK ~ am I missing the obvious!
So, my humble Epson Photo 900 (black & 3 colour carts in it) gives me an acceptably accurate print when I compare it to the same image printed on the Fuji Frontier and my screen ~ I can see the differences but it looks good.
Therefore, can I take the leap of faith that if I save my print ready image file with a CMYK profile and get a 4 colour process commercial printer to print the cards I will get a good rendition of the colours I see on the screen.
A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing but it would be good to get some reassurance of the steps I need to take to get a good greetings card printed.
And in respect of working with/towards the CMYK profile just what is the best way to do this - when I get to the 'save as' stage in PSCS2 the only tick box I have is to embed the sRGB profile, the ref to CMYK is greyed out. I have not ventured into the "Color Settings" dialogues, is there a specific setting that gives me the option to select the CMYK option at the 'save as' point rather than the sRGB ?
Sorry to have made that longwinded and I hope you can guide me through this quagmire
TIA
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A knowledgeable print shop can do a better job of converting than the generic Photoshop conversion. Send it to them in sRGB - i'd imagine that's what they'd prefer to work with. Actually, the best advice is usually to follow _their_ advice.
A proper CMYK conversion is specific to the printing system (press and RIP) - converting among various RGB systems can in theory be done in an optimal way without the same specific requirements.
If you want to delve into CMYK modes the conversion is done in the Image/Image Mode menu, not the save as dialog.