Can I use L*A*B to specify all my colors

[Plaza]

Hello all, noob question.

I'm working in Adobe CS4. Lets say I'm working on a design and I don't know how it is going to be printed - inkjet or sheetfed CMYK or web or digital press or whatever. Can I use L*A*B to specify all my colors, and then, when I do know how it will be printed, successfully convert to CMYK using the profile for that printer?

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Yes! ofcourse you can, that is the whole point of colour management. When you define a colour that is not printable in the output colur space you will see a yellow warning triangle in the colur picker or editor to tell you that you are out of gamut, but using the proof preview and a correctly calibrated monitor you will be able to predict the outcome. I would reccomend saving as a PDFx standard so that the next person in line will see the output intent (and your proofer environment) so thtat they can tell what you are expecting.

 

[Plaza]

Thanks!

When you define a colour that is not printable in the output colur space you will see a yellow warning triangle in the colur picker or editor to tell you that you are out of gamut,

How does this work in a situation where I don't yet know what the output is going to be? Since I don't know, I can't connect to a profile...so what does the software use as its guide for the warnings?

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Document CMYK (though it is good practice to have document CMYK same as Working CMYK, assigning different CMYK if you want to preserve CMYK Values).
Note clicking the warning icon will bring the Out of gamut colour in gamut using the rendering intent described in the document colour settings. You may choose to keep the Lab values even if they are out of gamut for say newsprint, because you feel that the proofing view is acceptable interpretation/translation of the colour for that media, but you want to be able to get even better match once you have the Gamut.