Convert To Destination (Preserve Numbers)

[Prepper]

Has the way this behaves when exporting out of Indesign changed recently? We are normally working with new RGB files but occasionally on a reprint we have legacy CMYK images with various old profiles applied. This is the setting we've used for several years now and I thought that with this checked on that it would convert any RGB to our current profile but would pass any CMYK images thru without conversion. Is that not the case?

Just had a image in a file Thursday, with one of our old profiles applied and exporting with this setting changed the colors drastically and took me a while to figure out what was going on. It only comes out right if I change the setting to No Color Conversion which doesn't really work if we have other elements in there that are RGB.

 

[buckeye]

Are you saying that your CMYK images are changing or are you saying that your RGB images are changing to a different color space than you're accustomed to?

-Erik

 

[Colorblind]

In menu Edit/Assign Profile, is your document CMYK space the same as your working space (the one defined in your CMYK Color Settings)?

 

[Prepper]

Yes, a cmyk image that had an old embedded profile was converted upon export to our current profile instead of being passed through untouched. I was under the impression that the Convert to Destination (Preserve Numbers) setting wouldn't do that to any CMYK but the description of that setting says it will convert anything with an embedded profile that is different from the destination, to the destination, except for objects without an embedded profile or native objects.

 

[Prepper]

Colorblind, no it isn't, the document CMYK space is the old profile one, working space is our current new one. Apparently someone just opened the old doc and saved.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

I'd really recommend VIGC Output Essentials it helps you walk trough the PDF creation flow. It is allways best to make sure you have document and output profiles as the same. AND enable warnings for colour miss-matches… CMYK can I prefer to handle preserving numbers in most cases (except when repurposing) RGB should almost always enable all profiles.

 

[Prepper]

Hi Lukas, I'll check that out. As I tried to explain in my previous post, I did want to preserve as this was a legacy file with an older custom CMYK profile applied. I thought that "Convert to Destination (Preserve Numbers)" setting did that, but the description says it converts anything with an embedded profile that differs from the destination, if I understand that correctly.
I did discover that it does have something to do with the document setting being that old profile also, maybe? If I take the same tiff and place it into a new Indesign file and export with the same settings it comes out ok, not converted? In this case the tiff is still the old profile but the document and destination profiles match and are our current CMYK profile.
Been busy since and not time to think it through much more but any pointers are welcome.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

If the output is PDF, another option is to export with no colour conversion and then to do the colour conversions in Acrobat Pro or in PDF Workflow software. It is best to get your InDesign work flow sorted out, however sometimes you just have to get the job done and then revisit things later when you have time.


Stephen Marsh

 

[rich apollo]

Prepper,
"preserve numbers" keeps CMYK elements created within InDesign unchanged. You need to assign the profile of the document working space to the image. You can do that during the import process or Control click on the image. In the menu go to Graphics > Image Color Settings (you could also go to the menu under Object > Image Color Settings).

Personally, I'm with Stephen. I prefer color management in PDFs. InDesign and Illustrator just don't give the necessary control.

 

[Prepper]

Rich,

So is Acrobat sufficient for that? We only have a simple Xitron Navigator rip, no workflow in other words so have been doing our conversion when exporting out of Indesign, which has worked pretty well for us since we create all our own files in-house in RGB so we can convert to whatever we need to in the future.

To add...the image and the document had the same cmyk profile, exporting to a different one changed the color and I mistakenly thought I guess that the Preserve Numbers thing left CMYK that was in a different profile unchanged. If I choose "Adjust the Document to the current color settings" when opening, and then output as usual, the color (cmyk percentages in file) aren't changed. If I select leave as is when opening it gets changed on output.

Guess I haven't ran across this in a while and it just kind of threw me a curve. So, for legacy files that I don't want converted, pass cmyk thru untouched, I need to choose "Adjust..." when opening an old file? And then output to current cmyk profile and the colors won't be changed?

Thanks

 

[Colorblind]

I ran into the same situation as yours in the past where I was getting unwanted CMYK to CMYK conversion (when exporting to PDF with "preserve numbers") when the document was previously saved with another CMYK profile. If what you really want is to preserve CMYK values, on a Mac you can use the following AppleScript, it assigns any open InDesign document with the same CMYK and RGB profiles as the ones in your Color Settings so no CMYK to CMYK conversion should occur when exporting to PDF with "preserve numbers". Works for me anyway. Just paste the following code in AppleScript Editor, compile and run (you will need to have opened InDesign documents). You can also save it as an application, place it in the dock. Hope it helps.

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5.5"
activate
--this grabs your Color Settings CMYK working space
set current_cmyk_working_space to get working space CMYK of color settings
--this grabs your Color Settings RBG working space
set current_rgb_working_space to get working space RGB of color settings
--this makes a list of all opened InDesign documents to be targeted inside the loop
set all_open_id_docs to (get every document)
--start of loop
repeat with this_id_doc in all_open_id_docs
tell this_id_doc
--assigns InDesign document same CMYK profile as Color Settings CMYK working space
set CMYK profile to current_cmyk_working_space
--assigns InDesign document same RGB profile as Color Settings RGB working space
set RGB profile to current_rgb_working_space
end tell
end repeat
--end of loop
end tell

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Acrobat Pro 9 or later has very detailed colour conversion options. One can select individual objects and manually convert one by one - however there is of course a more productive method. Advanced/Print Production/Convert Colors has many options and filtering methods to only apply conversions to specific elements (such as only RGB elements, or only RGB images but not RGB text, or only page 4 or all pages etc). Pay particular attention to using the three "convert options" for "preserve".

Stephen Marsh

 

[rich apollo]

I'm sorry, Prepper, now I'm confused. Is the document not in the same color space as the destination color space?

 

[Prepper]

No, it wasn't. I didn't realize that at first because we had usually handled it the same way, "leave as is" when opening and output normally. I guess I don't run across this enough to know how it's handled, or had forgotten, and was assuming that the "Preserve Numbers" didn't convert images already tagged with a cmyk profile to the one set as destination.

Looked at this file again later yesterday and if I open it that way and then assign the destination profile, the appearance changes on-screen to look like it should and it exports as it should, which by that I mean it then matches previous output in the CMYK percentages that we did in 2004 and 2006 with this same file.

Most of our legacy files we've updated by taking them and converting to RGB so we can output to whatever CMYK profile we need to but this particular file is one of those troublesome ones that didn't seem to work doing that either. Writing this just now makes me wonder if it would work if I assign the current profile first and then convert to RGB? Gonna go try that right now!

Thanks