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iancl

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« on: January 08, 2010, 05:32:05 am »

I am in the process of printing a book of my images.

I began the process using Blurb but have been unhappy with the physical print quality of their product. Much of the poor print quality has clearly been their fault – randomly streaky/blotchy prints, or strong regular vertical banding. To their credit, they have stood behind their product and offered to reprint these books (at this point I'd prefer my money – but they won't do that). I have begun to wonder if part of the issue with my too dark prints though is their recommended method of colour management.

My images began as 16-bit, ProPhoto TIFs. Blurb provides a generic profile for the HP Indigo press. I have soft-proofed to this profile as I would for an inkjet print job on my own machine. My files are now soft-proofed 16-bit, ProPhoto TIFs.

Their advice is:

"In the PDF to Book workflow, all RGB color spaces are converted to sRGB, then to CMYK at the HP Indigo print device. Therefore, all CMYK color spaces remain as is and are not converted. Depending on your preferred color space, you'll want to follow these guidelines for optimal print results:

   1. If your images are already sRGB, it is not necessary to convert to CMYK because the HP Indigo is preset to convert sRGB to CMYK.
   2. If your images are Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, Colormatch RGB, or another RGB color space, the optimal workflow is to convert your images to the CMYK profile optimized for the HP Indigo presses that Blurb uses. This ICC profile – HP5000SemimatteExp05.icc – can be downloaded at http://blurb.com/downloads/HP5000SemimatteExp05.icc. Color conversion is best done via an imaging program, such as Adobe® Photoshop®,prior to placing your images or graphics into Adobe® InDesign® or your preferred layout tool. "

Does this advice make sense? I am confused as to why I am converting to the profile. Isn't this now double colour managing?

What should be the correct workflow to output a press-ready PDF? Also, is InDesign really any worse at performing the conversion than Photoshop? I would have assumed it was the same conversion engine throughout the Adobe suite.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2010, 05:33:28 am by iancl »
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2010, 10:14:09 am »

Ian,

I haven't done this myself yet, (but the time may be coming). That said, my understanding is this: The fewer conversions that need to be made and the more of them that are under your control the better, provided it's done right of course. In that sense, their advice in point (2) makes sense. It's known as a "late-binding" CMYK workflow, whereby you do all your image edits in your preferred workspace first, then prepare the CMYK separations as they suggest. That way, you can soft-proof the process using their profile to the last point before which they receive the files in a state that is pretty much press-ready. This is different from inkjet printing. In the latter, we send RGB data to the printer and the printer driver does the CMYK conversion on-the-fly - those machines are designed that way. Printing presses receive CMYK separations.
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Pat Herold

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« Reply #2 on: January 08, 2010, 01:38:46 pm »

Coincidentally, CHROMiX just last month put out a newsletter with my article on photo books.  There's a short section on what to expect concerning color management:
http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Photo_Books

I took a look at the HP5000 profile you linked to.  It looks very much like a legitimate Indigo profile, rather than a SWOP profile.  The reason for the conversion is to put your pages into "Indigo press" color space so that it will print well on their presses.  It is not double conversion unless you are converting to any other profiles along the way.  Seems like a reasonable way to go.  

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iancl

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« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2010, 02:58:07 pm »

Thanks everyone.

I asked only because I had followed their results and not received a good result (both darker and colours off). So, it isn't their instructions and it isn't my colour handling (my own prints come out fine and my off-set card runs for local print houses are good).
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2010, 03:46:13 pm »

From what you say it sounds as if the problem is at their end. They should be able to look at your PDF on a colour-managed display, look at the book they produced for you and see whether a reasonable standard of similarity has been achieved before sending it out. Sounds like you need more discussion with them.
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KeithR

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« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2010, 01:51:33 pm »

I will admit that I have not yet done a book, but some day I'd like to give it a try. Over ther years I've researched and read of the many different options and experinces that are available and have always been courious as to the color managemnet issues involved with these on demand publishers. From what I've read the bottom line comes down to basically doing everything you can in the colorspace you're used to and then convert it to a jpg in sRGB and send that to the publisher. For the most part, one is dealing with publishers that have the books printed at various printing houses across the globe. Not all do, but my guess is that most do. The only constant I see is that any one publisher/printer is using a specific printer(for example the Indigo 5000) in all the plants they choose to print the books. How well each plant uses or understands or even implements color management is anyones guess. That's just my opinion as I have no knowledge other than what I have garnered through readings of other peoples experences on many different forums. I did come across a photographer's website wherein he explains the making of his book(through Blurb) and his thought process in doing so. He does not however go into color management issues. In any event, I found it most interesting in the way he procceded. Other than his thought process, I found it interesting that he did a test first, to see how the book would look and one can only assume that he made his final edit based on that test copy.
From a previous article he posted on his site:
"The idea of publishing my own book had been kicking around in my head for a while, but became more than just a thought back in December after a conversation with good friend, photographer, John   Shaw. He talked to me about the idea of self-publishing and that some very prominent photographers were using Blurb.com. With John's encouragement I began investigating Blurb.com and was so impressed with their program and page layout selection that I made a very short "TEST" book shortly before the Christmas holiday. I was blown away when I received a finished book only 10 days after submission. The test book looked terrific from the first page to the last. The color, quality, sharpness, and every detail looked beautiful. I compared the premium page quality of printing to some book projects I had been involved with over the years with publishers like Simon and Schuster, Bantam, and National Geographic and found little or no difference."

http://www.daveblackphotography.com/workshop/06-2009.htm

For the record, I want to make it clear that I have no experience with Blurb(other than going to their website) nor have I seen a copy of Mr. Black's book. I just thought that some may find his article interesting.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2010, 01:53:46 pm by KeithR »
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Wayne Fox

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« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2010, 02:26:27 pm »

Quote from: KeithR
"The idea of publishing my own book had been kicking around in my head for a while, but became more than just a thought back in December after a conversation with good friend, photographer, John   Shaw. He talked to me about the idea of self-publishing and that some very prominent photographers were using Blurb.com. With John's encouragement I began investigating Blurb.com and was so impressed with their program and page layout selection that I made a very short "TEST" book shortly before the Christmas holiday. I was blown away when I received a finished book only 10 days after submission. The test book looked terrific from the first page to the last. The color, quality, sharpness, and every detail looked beautiful. I compared the premium page quality of printing to some book projects I had been involved with over the years with publishers like Simon and Schuster, Bantam, and National Geographic and found little or no difference."

http://www.daveblackphotography.com/workshop/06-2009.htm


Very similar experience except I wasn't very happy with the results.  Standard sRGB files that look good from other output, including mPix calendars (which use Kodak NexPress printers not HP Indigos) were dark, sort of muddy and blue.  Someone asked about my paper choice, and I thought I used the higher quality paper, but may have forgot.  Going to give them a go again.

Main attraction to Blurb is they help you market the book.  Love the model, just need to figure the color stuff out.
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« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2010, 03:25:49 pm »

Quote from: iancl
Blurb provides a generic profile for the HP Indigo press

There’s really no such thing! As someone who’s built a slew of profiles for Indigo’s (and other digital presses), there’s a slew of options, settings for RIP and front end, paper options, target densities and so on that would make me dismiss lab that tells you they have a “generic” Indigo profile. The paper alone will make a huge difference.

In terms of overall image quality, the Nexpress can’t hold a candle to a modern Indigo.
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« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2010, 03:34:56 pm »

Quote from: iancl
1. If your images are already sRGB, it is not necessary to convert to CMYK because the HP Indigo is preset to convert sRGB to CMYK.
   2. If your images are Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, Colormatch RGB, or another RGB color space, the optimal workflow is to convert your images to the CMYK profile optimized for the HP Indigo presses that Blurb uses. This ICC profile – HP5000SemimatteExp05.icc –


Depends on the front end getting the data. There are workflows where you could send either sRGB or Adobe RGB (1998) to the press and it will convert on the fly (based on such things as how the rendering intent in the RIP is setup etc). The RIP could detect any RGB embedded profile and do the conversion from there.

I’ve sent a lot of color files through custom profiles to Indigos using both sRGB and Adobe RGB (1998). Its not going to make a huge difference. If I knew the shop would accept RGB files with embedded profiles, I’d still send it Adobe RGB (1998) but again, if you have sRGB source documents, its going to be just fine.
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iancl

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« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2010, 02:30:00 pm »

Quote from: Wayne Fox
Very similar experience except I wasn't very happy with the results.  Standard sRGB files that look good from other output, including mPix calendars (which use Kodak NexPress printers not HP Indigos) were dark, sort of muddy and blue.  Someone asked about my paper choice, and I thought I used the higher quality paper, but may have forgot.  Going to give them a go again.

Main attraction to Blurb is they help you market the book.  Love the model, just need to figure the color stuff out.


Yeah, my prints are dark and muddy from their presses as well. The provided profile did suggest that the prints would be slightly too blue upon soft proofing. I balanced that out and the resulting images were OK with regards to colour temperature – maybe even a touch warm/red. They were also a touch more saturated than my files.  

I realise I am trying to print images that are especially hard for CMYK presses (night photography with subtle deep shadow detail and saturated dark colours).

Anyways, I am going to give them another shot. I also plan to try out Pikto here in Toronto. They have been quite helpful by phone about their colour management process and their supplies profile suggests that I will get a better range of colours, especially in the dark, saturated blues. We'll see what the results are like. I plan to post a long, in depth review of my experiences with both companies once I have finished copies (or I give up in frustration!).


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iancl

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« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2010, 02:40:12 pm »

Quote from: digitaldog
There’s really no such thing! As someone who’s built a slew of profiles for Indigo’s (and other digital presses), there’s a slew of options, settings for RIP and front end, paper options, target densities and so on that would make me dismiss lab that tells you they have a “generic” Indigo profile. The paper alone will make a huge difference.

In terms of overall image quality, the Nexpress can’t hold a candle to a modern Indigo.

I say "generic" only because they give the same profile for both of their offered paper types and it is supposedly a useful profile regardless of which of their many print-houses print the job that is sent.

Pikto, on the other hand, offers paper specific profiles for each of the papers they offer. The profile show the expected dramatic differences between a gloss paper and a matte one. This inspires more confidence (but, we'll see).
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #11 on: January 10, 2010, 03:02:31 pm »

Ian, once you have the results, please do post your observations about the comparative quality. Given that Pikto is considerably more expensive than some of the others, it would be interesting to read whether you think the quality difference justifies the price difference.
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digitaldog

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« Reply #12 on: January 10, 2010, 03:53:29 pm »

Quote from: iancl
I say "generic" only because they give the same profile for both of their offered paper types and it is supposedly a useful profile regardless of which of their many print-houses print the job that is sent.

Pikto, on the other hand, offers paper specific profiles for each of the papers they offer. The profile show the expected dramatic differences between a gloss paper and a matte one. This inspires more confidence (but, we'll see).

It looks generic in that its an HP built profile. I’ve worked with HP, and once they told me it takes months to build such a profile. Funny, we’ve built em for multiple presses running the same paper and press conditions in a matter of days.

A profile for such a device is absolutely paper specific. I’ve build a number of profiles for multiple papers on Indigos (and other digital presses) and you simply can’t mix and match em.

The reports of the soft proofing (“ The provided profile did suggest that the prints would be slightly too blue upon soft proofing.“) provides further evidence that whatever is going on here is far from best practice.

What I can report is if someone is running 5500’s and 7000’s, the same profile can be used with the same paper and press settings.
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« Reply #13 on: January 30, 2010, 07:45:25 pm »

Hi Ian,

You did not mention in your post, but I'll assume your monitor is calibrated.  Otherwise the custom printer profile is meaningless.

One major challenge with your workflow is that you are converting your files from the ProPhoto to CMYK.  ProPhoto is excellent for maintaining your master files; however for CMYK conversion the color space is just too large.  The end result is that you will end up with images that are muddy, lack detail.

I ran into this problem on a recent book project and had to reprocess the ProPhoto images to AdobeRGB.  AdobeRGB is a much smaller space than ProPhoto, so it converts much better to CMYK.

You definitely don’t want to send them images in the RGB colorspace if they are converting to sRGB and then to CMYK.  sRGB is the smallest color space, so you are just losing valuable colorspace.

While you can convert images in InDesign; Photoshop has many additional tools to assist in getting a better conversion.

It is very important to ensure that there are no color casts, as the CMYK conversion can really enhance the problem.  Setting your black and white point in a Curves layer and then adjusting the individual channels is the most accurate approach.

While you are soft-proofing you should set the Second Color Readout in the Info Panel to Proof Color.  This will allow you to monitor the individual CMYK ink usage throughout your images.  If any of the ink levels are at 0% then you are losing detail.  If this is the case, then you need to add a Hue/Saturation or Selective Color layer to bring back the detail in that color.

You can convert the image to CMYK once you are happy with all the color levels.

For image sharpening,  I have had great results using the PixelGenius sharpening tools as you can select sharpening for specific CMYK output levels.

There are a ton of additional things that can be done for sharpening, maximizing total ink levels, etc,  but that would make this a very long post.



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« Reply #14 on: January 31, 2010, 01:49:10 am »

I wrote about my Burb experiences using PDF to Book (and also Booksmart + B3) at http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....showtopic=40712. You may find it useful. Bottom line is colour management when using PDF to Book is pointless. Each printer, and each city, will result in quite different results and there doesn't appear to be any way to know which city/printer your book will be produced on.

I've ordered 4 copies of my PDF to Book, and the first copy was a total disaster that they reprinted for me. The other three (all ordered in the same batch) were better, but definitely magenta. I've had a co-worker show me their book in bitter disappointment because it was "too dark", and even though the source images were too dark for my tastes, a reprint of their book was shockingly brighter.

Pikto in Toronto, by the way, was simply not an option for me due to price. They are very, very, expensive (see a later post in the thread mentioned above).

Neil
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« Reply #15 on: January 31, 2010, 09:38:07 am »

Can I add some first hand experience here. I was involved with beta testing the PDF workflow for Blurb and made several books with it. At the time the beta trial was running the advice was to use sRGB images, so I exported all my required images from Lightroom as full sized (from an EOS1DsII) 16bit sRGB Tiffs and placed them into InDesign CS4. When the layout was finished I used the Resample images script to downsize all the images to final size at 300dpi, then used an action in PS CS4 to apply Photokit sharpener to all the resized images. I’ve found optimising image size and sharpening to make a significant improvement in output with the Blurb system. See http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index....48&hl=blurb for sharpener settings and http://sites.google.com/a/lapay.biz/www/sc...mageproperties2 for the excellent free script.

The colours reproduced in the final books are generally very good indeed, but as others have said, there are differences between the presses used that makes colour management less precise than it should be. Going back and comparing the sRGB images, soft proofed images and the printed book, I can see the soft proofs can be a little more accurate.
However the differences between the soft proof and sRGB are similar to the colour variations between presses, overall they’re close enough that I’m not sure I’d make much effort to soft proof or convert to CMYK in future projects. Different subject matter with wider gamut images might change that decision though.
 
The only issue I had when using sRGB images is trying to get a printed ‘black’ background to match a 0,0,0 sRGB black. Suddenly you hit the “rich black” issue with CMYK. Using CMYK images ought to allow you to pick the photo’s CMYK colour and use it for a custom swatch, but I haven’t had the opportunity to put this into practice yet. Again some press variation might make this futile anyway.

Hope this is of interest

Paul
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« Reply #16 on: January 31, 2010, 12:38:47 pm »

Quote from: JustinFabian
One major challenge with your workflow is that you are converting your files from the ProPhoto to CMYK.  ProPhoto is excellent for maintaining your master files; however for CMYK conversion the color space is just too large.  The end result is that you will end up with images that are muddy, lack detail.

Never seen that with the combo of files and output profiles I use. I’d love to see some examples and have a better idea of the CMYK output profiles you’ve used to see this, wondering if the profiles are primarily at fault here.

If anything, the 1.8 TRC gamma, like ColorMatch RGB (which was designed a very long time ago as a working space ideal for CMYK conversions) should help in this translation to CMYK.
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« Reply #17 on: January 31, 2010, 12:57:05 pm »

Quote from: neile
Bottom line is colour management when using PDF to Book is pointless.

Not my experience but I’m using printers that have a clue about handling PDFs and ripping them with proper color management and profile usage for on demand printing. There’s nothing inherently wrong or at fault with the PDF format in terms of color management, there are plenty of shops that will hose output by not handling the format correctly. To suggest that any PDF to book project using color management is useless is simply not correct.

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« Reply #18 on: January 31, 2010, 02:02:01 pm »

Quote from: digitaldog
Not my experience but I’m using printers that have a clue about handling PDFs and ripping them with proper color management and profile usage for on demand printing. There’s nothing inherently wrong or at fault with the PDF format in terms of color management, there are plenty of shops that will hose output by not handling the format correctly. To suggest that any PDF to book project using color management is useless is simply not correct.

Andrew, I agree with this. The book we had done at Pikto was handed over to them as a PDF file (initial layouts were done using In-Design) and they managed it very well. They got the B&W content looking neutral as it should, and the colour content was also quite faithful to the originals, making due allowance for the inevitable narrowing of gamut between an inkjet print produced on a 3800 and a CMYK book print. But what I would appreciate hearing a bit from you is more exactly what you mean by "handling PDFs and ripping them with proper color management and profile usage for on demand printing".
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« Reply #19 on: January 31, 2010, 02:08:22 pm »

Quote from: Mark D Segal
But what I would appreciate hearing a bit from you is more exactly what you mean by "handling PDFs and ripping them with proper color management and profile usage for on demand printing".

You can send a PDF in RGB or CMYK (or both), so the short answer is, which is allowed or provided for? The color settings and file saving options in Acrobat 9 are robust and allow one to send PDFs to output devices in a number of ways, just like you would with a Photoshop file. We end users don’t have control over the front end or RIP so first step is finding out what the provider will accept. I’ve sent both RGB working space and output ready data to Indigo’s and other digital presses without issue, but the shops were in the position of accommodating my needs.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2010, 02:08:43 pm by digitaldog »
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