Re: How can I turn off colour manager completely in 7.31
FYI If you open a legacy document into Quark 7, don' do it. Too many problems (old ICC profiles used - no dang good if you ask me, type rewraps, and PANTONE CMYK equivalents of PANTONE solid coated, etc. changed even though that's the same library name used as in Quark 6.5). So only open legacy Quark documents in Quark 6.5 and older (best to open in version that created the document).
That leaves us with making new Quark 7 documents (or working with already saved and re-opened Quark 7 documents). When you do this, the CMYK profile in Quark is a TR001/SWOP profile just like in Photoshop, but in Quark, the profile is just for display purposes ONLY. It doesn't actually change numbers on output (so numbers in Photoshop are the same as in the PDF/X-1a or ripped file). Same goes for grayscale.
Any RGB that has an embedded profile that's placed into Quark 7.3 will have that profile honored/used by Quark 7.3. The problem comes in when untagged RGB (RGB with no embedded profile) is involved. Since Quark's Proof Setup is defaulted to None, then an untagged RGB will look like it's using sRGB IEC 61966-2.1 (and look the same as it does in Photoshop using North American General Purpose 2 color settings). BUT when Proof Setup is changed to CMYK or CMYK and Spot, THEN what you're really going to get is displayed. And it changes from what you just saw. What happened? Quark displayed the untagged RGB as assuming the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile when Proof Setup set to None, and but actually assumed/used the default Quark 7 RGB profile (same as Adobe RGB (1998)) before converting to CMYK (which is seen if Proof Setup set to CMYK or CMYK and Spot). This is wrong, and I have let Quark know this multiple times even before the product 7.0 was released, and they either still don't "get it" or don't care. Therefore, when placing untagged RGB in Quark 7.3 (BTW never use RGB in Quark 6.5 or older), go to Preferences > Color Manager and check 'Enable access to picture profiles', then select the picture box, go to the Profile Information palette, and see if the untagged RGB looks better with sRGB IEC61966-2.1 profile assigned vs. Quark 7's default RGB assigned. If so, assign sRGB IEC61966-2.1.
Also, to make sure you're using PANTONE's CMYK numbers and not Lab numbers, DON'T use As Is when outputting. If you want to use PANTONE's Lab values and convert them to CMYK, then use As Is when outputting. But know this: As Is sends numbers as they are. No ICC profiles will be sent, so the conversion downstream has a chance of not using the same RGB profile as you used in Quark. I would recommend either not using RGB and use As Is, or not using As Is and using RGB. Can't do both and expect correct output.
Finally, I always make Quark output PostScript (with bleed and marks) and set up a Watched folder in Distiller to make the PDF/X-1a.
Damn, Adobe is so much easier when you look at this list. In comparison to the above, for Adobe, I can say use default North American General Purpose 2 color settings except turn CMYK Color Management Policy to Off and save as new color settings which you will want to use in all Adobe apps for the color settings. Tagged RGB (with embedded profile) will have that profile honored/used, untagged RGB will assume sRGB IEC61966-2.1. Output PDF/X-1a (with bleed and marks) or PDF 1.4 or higher if your provider asks for you to output that type of PDF (with bleed and marks).
This is how I handle color management and have for years with no problems. Hope this helps.
Don
