I've been designing and printing for some time now, I've always used a colour space/profile that my supplier gave me which is ISO_coated_v2 which I believe is based on fogra39.
When I'm printing business stationery, I understand colors are limited and I tend to use the Pantone Color Bridge to work out my color which I've always been happy with, when printing using my large format printer although they prints look roughly the same, I think they look really dull as I for some reason expect more.
So I have now created my own profile using an i1pro2 and i1profiler, I used 3600 patches to create it, limited the single ink limits and total ink limits (in my rip) based on my findings and printed a color prophoto rgb image.
When I open this up in Photoshop, the colors are really really vibrant which you would expect, I'm not silly enough to think it will print like this so I turn on color proof In Photoshop and get a realistic view.
I printed the original file in its RGB format using my new profile and the colors look great, they seem to pop although though I have puddles of ink on the dark parts but more importantly It seems to match my screen (which is also calibrated). I then converted the image in photoshop to CMYK using my original ISO_coated_v2 profile, the proof now looks dull and when printed, it's as expected, dull.
So I open the original file again and convert it to CMYK using my newly created profile, much better on the proof and it prints identical to the RGB print (I think anyway).
Now, every media should have its own profile custom made and to makes matters worse, I also design for online content.
So my question is, should I always design in RGB and use color proof to give me my estimated results? I'm thinking this way I should have a wider gamut for when needed (on screen) but when I use the Pantone color bridge they should print out as expected.
I'm so confused right now
