color settings Indd. CS4

[rande]

What's the right settings?
sRGB IEC61966-2.1 vs Adobe RGB(1998)
and
U.S. Web Coated (swop)v2 vs U.S. Sheetfed coated v2

of does it really matter a lot?

thanks

 

[TerryWyse]

A simple question with complex answers.

There's no "right" answer but only recommendations:

* Assuming you have Creative Suite, I would first synchronize your ID color settings and policies with Photoshop. Since whatever images you place in ID will first be touched by PS, it makes sense to match up their color settings prefs. (you can use Bridge to easily sync your settings for the entire CS).

* Choice of RGB working space depends a lot on where your RGB images are coming from. If you have complete control of your RGB images (you're doing the scanning and/or photography) then perhaps AdobeRGB will be a good choice. Note that you also need to take a look at your capture workflow as well....if you're shooting JPEGs, set your camera's prefs to AdobeRGB...if you're shooing raw, export the processed raw using AdobeRGB. In ALL cases, embed profiles where you can.
On the other hand, if you're not in total control of your image capture (photos are supplied to you from an outside source), I would say sRGB is a better *assumed* source profile. In any case, make sure your color management polices are set to *preserve* embedded profiles.

* Choice of CMYK working space should be based on the typical destination of your printing jobs....newsprint/newspaper, web/publication, sheetfed offset, etc. If you're sending your projects off to a publication printer, US Web Coated (SWOP) v2 would be a reasonable choice or perhaps SWOP2006_Coated3 would be even better (SWOP2006 Coated3 should've been installed with CS4 and should supercede US Web Coated (SWOP) v2 in my opinion). GRACoL2006_Coated1 would be a better choice for commercial sheetfed offset printing as opposed to US Sheetfed Coated...US Sheetfed Coated is based on a film negative Matchprint proof and, as such, assumes a relatively large amount of dot gain, upwards of 20%, which is generally not today's reality of typical "linear" direct-to-plate offset printing. "Linear" plate curve dot gain is closer to 14-17% these days. If you prepare separations using US Sheetfed Coated, your images will be over-compensated for dot gain and print too light.

How's that for a start?

Regards,
Terry

 

[rande]

We're just a printer and get RGBs from clients. Instead of opening all into Photoshop
I want to just run them out of Indd CS4 and be done with it. We haven't really has a problem,
just trying to tighten it up. We want a rich look, so I'm leaning towards Adobe RGB (1998) vs iRGB.
Just wondered what others are doing.

 

[mattbeals]

Are they RGB digital photographs, screen captures, etc? If you get a lot of those then maybe sRGB is the way to go for assumed profiles.

When exporting a PDF, are you having InDesign do the RGB to CMYK conversion? Are you converting tagged CMYK to the destination profile or using the option to "preserve numbers"?

I'm with Terry on using SWOP 2006 3v2 for a destination.

One thing you might consider is using an export PDF style that includes all profiles and does no color conversion as well as preserving transparency (PDF/X-4:2008) and then using Acrobat Pro to convert colors and flatten transparency. Using Acrobat's built in tools for color convresions you gain a lot of flexibility in how exactly the conversion takes place.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

You say you want a rich look and so lean to AdobeRGB, well that is a little bit tricky situation. If you have images that are untagged they are most likley to be sRGB and if you would default them to Adobe RGB you will get seriously over rich colours, like using the poles from a 3 man tent when setting up a 2 man tent, it will burst in the seams as you stretch it in a space bigger than it is made for.

It is not a problem to mix images with Adobe RGB and sRGB, in InDesign the RGB in the colour settings is the profile used for untagged items. I do not synchronise accross applications, I use sRGB as default in InDesign. I actually use ECI as default in Photoshop as it has the same whitepoint as ISO Coated.
I know some photograpers like to go Prophoto RGB because it is the biggest gamut, but you must realise if you go prophoto you will need to work with 16-bits and you will loose detail because so much of that gamut is unprintable, not to mention you will be working in the dark because no monitor can display prophoto RGB.

Also realise that turning off colour management is a bad thing. You need to invest time to learn colour management.

Your colour rendering intent will also greatly affect the appearance. If your target is a coated substrate use Relative rendering with blackpoint compensation (now depending on your rip that may not be available in the rip, in wich case you will get a better result if you convert RGB to CMYK before the RIP). If you do this in InDesign or Acrobat you will get the same result.
If you are aiming for uncoated or newsprint use perceptual, because the difference in gamut is too large.

 

[Correct Color]

We're just a printer and get RGBs from clients. Instead of opening all into Photoshop
I want to just run them out of Indd CS4 and be done with it. We haven't really has a problem,
just trying to tighten it up. We want a rich look, so I'm leaning towards Adobe RGB (1998) vs iRGB.
Just wondered what others are doing.

Now, me, I want ice cream, and I don't want to pay for it or to gain any weight.

Not to be too flip, but that's kind of what you're asking for here. Fact is every rgb image you get from a client is already in some color space. If you want to print them correctly, the trick is to figure out what that space is. Once you've done that, you can convert them into whatever space you prefer, but if you don't want to take the effort to find out the original space, there's not much point in hoping for a better result.

Mike Adams
Correct Color Color Management - Correct Color

 

[Stephen Marsh]

You say you want a rich look and so lean to AdobeRGB, well that is a little bit tricky situation. If you have images that are untagged they are most likley to be sRGB and if you would default them to Adobe RGB you will get seriously over rich colours

Agreed, which is why for some users that want a "hands off", "blind", "simple" approach - BruceRGB is a reasonable choice...when assigned/presumed on an sRGB file, it adds more saturation - just not as much as Adobe RGB. When assigned/presumed on an Adobe RGB file, some saturation is lost, just not as much as when sRGB is used. BruceRGB is "middle of the road" between sRGB and Adobe RGB.


Regards,

Stephen Marsh

 

[TerryWyse]

We're just a printer and get RGBs from clients. Instead of opening all into Photoshop
I want to just run them out of Indd CS4 and be done with it. We haven't really has a problem,
just trying to tighten it up. We want a rich look, so I'm leaning towards Adobe RGB (1998) vs iRGB.
Just wondered what others are doing.

As others have stated, assuming/assigning AdobeRGB to unknown and untagged RGB images is quite dangerous in my opinion and sRGB would be the safer choice....although Stephen Marsh's recommendation of BruceRGB sounds reasonable. I would even throw eciRGBv2 into the mix as another middle-of-the-road approach.

The real danger with AdobeRGB is when you receive untagged RGB images with fleshtones and assign AdobeRGB to what is likely an sRGB image.....the fleshtones will generally turn screaming red and will look seriously over-saturated. While the effect of AdobeRGB on other untagged images might be acceptable (like landscapes for instance), the effect on people is generally not desirable....unless of course the untagged image was actually meant to be assigned AdobeRGB to begin with.

Before you decide on AdobeRGB, I would take a cross section of images, including people photos, open them in Photoshop and start assigning some of the different color spaces that have been mentioned and see what you think. You'll undoubtedly find that, while AdobeRGB might "enhance" some images, it will completely wreck others (I'm assuming your display is properly calibrated/profiled..if not, you'll see the difference but it just won't be a 100% accurate preview). Your job is the find the color space that is the *safest* to use since you're not going to do the proper thing and open them in Photoshop and tag them prior to placing them in InDesign.

EDIT: I had in mind to also mention that BE SURE to have your color management polices set to "Preserve Embedded Profiles" that way, on the off-chance that you get some images that ARE properly tagged with the correct profile, you won't inadvertently DISCARD an embedded profile and assign the incorrect one. 99.9% of the time, if the image is supplied with an embedded profile, that profile IS the correct one even if the person supplying the image didn't realize they tagged/embedded the profile. At the very least, it's what they were seeing on screen as they were editing the image so there's a very good chance you could ruin the image by assigning something different.

Good luck!

Terry

 

[maas]

I recommend you investigate the roi of a colour server to convert from rgb to ISO/Fogra39,
the unpredictablity of your current setup would leave me somewhat uncomfortable.

regards
Maas

 

[mattbeals]

We can use Callas pdfToolbox as a "color server" of sorts. This way you get all the PDF/X standards, transparency flattening (if desired), preflight and manipulations.

 

[William Campbell]

Preserve embedded profiles so if a profile is assigned, you will honor it. I get many images from professional photographers which have their own custom profile tagged, and using it during CMYK conversion results in perfection (they are happy, and they are difficult customers to please when it comes to color). For RGB images that are not color managed, I assign sRGB. In my experience, most untagged images come from consumer digital cameras which are close to the sRGB color space. Closer than they are to AdobeRGB. Assuming AdobeRGB will mung flesh tones more often than not, at least for images from an unknown source, which again in most cases turns out to be a consumer digital camera. The destination of course depends on your printing process. Nowadays, for most commercial offset printing I would recommend GRACoL G7 profile as your target.

 

[olekingcoale]

Great info from all the replies here. I especially appreciated the tip from Lukas about the rendering intent...that's one I'd never heard before, and it probably explains some consistency issues I've had to deal with between coated and uncoated.

I have a few questions of my own...please bear with my current state of having "just enough knowledge to be dangerous." I'm just getting back into dealing with offset printing after a few years hiatus.

From the posts here and my own limited experience, Coated GRACoL 2006 is the preferred choice for sheet-fed coated...but what about uncoated? I've used US Sheetfed Uncoated v2 previously, but does it suffer from similar 'outdated' issues as the coated version? Does GRACoL have an uncoated profile? (I would think so, but CS4 installs with just coated version.) If not, what about Uncoated FOGRA29?

EDIT: Removed the dumb question about grayscale...​

It's been mentioned here several times that the proper way to manage color is to open each image in Photoshop and tag them prior to placing/updating them in InDesign. But if it's untagged to begin with, how does PS know how to do the conversion? Err...the answer to that question is probably over my head...I'll rephrase: In your experience, does PS do a good job of converting from untagged profiles? (I presume it's important to convert to the desired profile rather than just assign it.) If it doesn't, how do you go about figuring out what the original color space was?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Stephen Marsh]

It's been mentioned here several times that the proper way to manage color is to open each image in Photoshop and tag them prior to placing/updating them in InDesign. But if it's untagged to begin with, how does PS know how to do the conversion? Err...the answer to that question is probably over my head...I'll rephrase: In your experience, does PS do a good job of converting from untagged profiles? (I presume it's important to convert to the desired profile rather than just assign it.) If it doesn't, how do you go about figuring out what the original color space was?

Thanks in advance!

In this respect, most Adobe apps colour manage the same.

If the original does not have an embedded or "tagged" ICC profile, then the application *assumes* the colour using a pre-set "colour working space" set in colour settings for RGB, CMYK and Grayscale colour modes.

The preference for Photoshop is that it is best suited for making individual image inspections and colour profile assignment (edit menu/assign profile). An icc profile is just a metadata tag/label. Before converting, one should assign - otherwise the program will assume the working space setting (and you know that old saying about "ass-u-me").

In Photoshop, one makes the decision of what RGB profile to assign/tag using a number of tools/methods:

* Using their colour calibrated and colour profiled and colour managed monitor

* Using the softproof setting to see how an expected conversion from RGB to CMYK would go

* Using the most important palette/window in Photoshop - the INFO palette! One can inspect the expected CMYK values from the softproof setting and one can also inspect the L*a*b* values that are obtained when various RGB profiles are assigned to the image.

I have a Photoshop action that is meant to be of help when one is trying to guess what RGB profile to assign to untagged "mystery meat" RGB files:

"Tag Roulette - Action, Photoshop 6, 7 or later
Photoshop 6 action .atn file automatically assigns each of the four standard RGB working spaces to a RGB file as history states (Apple RGB, ColorMatch RGB, sRGB and Adobe RGB 1998). The Photoshop 7 action adds ProPhoto RGB. For use in the aid of identifying untagged RGB working space images."

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/TagRoulette_APS6.zip

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/TagRoulette_APS7.zip


Hope this helps,

Stephen Marsh

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

If you use the advanced setting in Photoshop you can extract the black channel of a profile as your gray profile, this is IMHO the best way to get a gray profile.

 

[olekingcoale]

Stephen:
Wow! Thank you very much for the detailed answer, the excellent tip, and especially for including the action file. Wicked cool.

Lukas:
I don't think I followed your response, but that's ok since it actually was a dumb question anyway...there wouldn't be a different output profile for grayscale images--the output profile is determined by the printing method and paper type, and you can't have more than one output profile for the job anyway. (In my defense I'm going to blame it on sleep-deprivation.) Sorry for the confusion.