CMYK color chart/color book -- any recommendations?

Hi folks,
Any recommendations for a CMYK color chart/wheel/book?
Thanks

'PMS' is obsolete, it is Pantone now, and if you say just Pantone, that is ambiguous because there are all kinds of Pantone books.
The printer is not after the cmyk breakdown, if they were, you would know that they are not colour managed.
They DO NOT require the numbers!
The way Pantone Matching works, is that the swatch (printed with certain dot sizes by a particular printer) has a particular appearance in specific circumstances:
eg: * A blueish swatch in your "Pantone coated process" book has a particular appearance
      * You choose the swatch
      * The Swatch appears in your swatch palette with a cmyk mix based on your working profile and a name defined by Pantone, NOT fixed numbers as you might have thought.
      * You output a press ready PDF to the PRINTER's nominated profile, the numbers change!
This is correct behaviour... the numbers will be different at each printer's RIP because they have fine-tuned their plate screens to output a colour that is close to the ideal appearance of the reference swatch.
If you saw the colour defined as 50 Cyan plus 20 Magenta that does not mean they see the same numbers, that is exactly the point, the numbers are irrelevant which is why you don't specify colours in CMYK terms any more. The printer might see 48 Cyan and 23 Magenta due to their using a different ink set or dot gain characteristic on their press but they will get the same visual result.
This happens because both parties (Press and Pantone) and you have looked at the same reference and calibrated their equipment to suit.
Pantone made the book, you adjusted your monitor and proofing device, the printer adjusted their press/RIP/proofer to all look alike. Each device has a colour profile that tells the next device how it saw a colour, the colour management software converts one to the other.
There..... colour management in a nutshell of infinite size. (as per Hamlet)

Similar Messages

Can't type (search) PANTONE+ numbers in InDesign CS5 7.0.4 Color Books

There is a glaring issue in trying to select Pantone+ colors by typing in the color number, like 97-8 (from the CMYK Pantone+ book) yields 17-1?! I have no idea why that comes up. And the panel is almost unusable due to this inexcusable oversight. It needs to be searchable by exact Pantone+ number. JUST LIKE REGULAR PANTONE NUMBERS in the regular color book, I could type in 18-1 and get 18-1 not some obscure number.
I have seen a few similar posts without proper answers EVEN IF it said it was answered.
I have pantone+ libraries installed. They just don't work when it comes to typing in the number you want...you have to scroll, and the scroll is way too slow or way too fast and very painful to use.
Please help!
Thank you!

This seems to only be the case with the Pantone+ Process color books. "Pantone+ CMYK Coated" & "Pantone+ CMYK Coated". This is a huge problem for me since 99.9% of our jobs are CMYK.
And I did reinstall the swatches recently and that did not fix InDesign.
But the Pantone+ CMYK color books work in Illustrator CS5 just fine... you can type in your number and get your color.

Can Acrobat X Standard create PDF files from Microsoft Word, using "CMYK" color (required by most book printers) instead of "RGB" color?

I'd like to purchase Acrobat Standard if it will let me control the color space used in the PDF it creates. I need to send a color file to a commercial book printer, and they require the PDF file to use CMYK colors, not RGB.
Will Acrobat Standard do this, and if so, how? Or do I need to get a different Adobe product for this task?

I'd like to purchase Acrobat Standard if it will let me control the color space used in the PDF it creates. I need to send a color file to a commercial book printer, and they require the PDF file to use CMYK colors, not RGB.
Will Acrobat Standard do this, and if so, how? Or do I need to get a different Adobe product for this task?

Pantone Colors with CMYK Colors?

Dear all!
I am LUCK. I am wondering about Pantone Colors with CMYK Colors. It's that I got 1 Pantone Color from my customer and then I changed it to the equivalent CMYK Color. Will I get different colors when changing from Pantone to CMYK because I will print with CMYK Printing Process? Anyway, I am wondering whether the Pantone color is the fix and specific color or not. I mean when I print the Pantone Color, I will get the same result as I print before. Is it right?
Please help to explain to me whether Pantone Colors will keep their colors the same and stable or not. Or would you mind telling me what kind of colors that can produce the same color every time I print, especially for the Formal Uses?
Sorry for being unaware of my knowledge here. Thanks a lot and best wishes to all!
I am looking forward to hearing from you.
My best regards,
LUCK

Pantone is a company, not a color. Pantone produces spot color inks, process color inks, and color references.
Understand first: Five color printing ("process plus one") is not uncommon, because six-color presses are not uncommon. When a project is printed on a 6-head press, it does not dramatically affect the costs, because the job can still be printed in one pass. Brochures and other marketing collateral are often printed in 5 inks when a company specifies a spot color as its identity color. When done right, the company's identity specifications also provide a CMYK mix to use in lieu of its spot color(s) when restricted to only CMYK (as in magazine placement ads).
So I'll assume your customer specified a Pantone spot color, and does not provide a preferred CMYK substitute, and your project is restricted to four color process (CMYK) printing.
CMYK mixes do not exactly match spot color inks; they can only approximate. How closely they can approximate depends upon which spot color you are dealing with.
Pantone provides its recommended CMYK values for approximating its spot color inks. That's why Illustrator provides a Pantone solid to process Swatch Library. But such lookups are recommendations; they are not absolute equivalents. There are many many colors in nature (and in spot ink pigment) which simply cannot be matched in CMYK. And any time you try to convert between color models (spot to CMYK, RGB to CMYK, etc.) you encounter ambiguities, because there are multiple algorithms that can be used to generate four values from fewer values.
I often find Pantone's spot-to-process recommendations to be unsatisfactory, and use my own CMYK approximations instead. This is not necessarily due to any failure or shortcoming of the Pantone libraries, but just differences that exist in specific printing houses and workflows. The printing process is full of variables.
Will I get different colors when changing from Pantone to CMYK
Yes, the colors will be different. But whether the difference is noticable depends upon the specific spot ink you are trying to match. It also depends upon the specific use of the color. Fact is, human color perception is very adaptive. Colors that are "mathematically" equivilant according to some colorimetric algorithm are not necessarily perceived as equivilant by human eyes, because much depends upon environment (adjacent colors, etc.)
You can refer to a printed process color reference against which you can compare a printed spot color swatch book and judge for yourself which CMYK values best approximate the spot color. Or, you can set up simple test sheet of your own, and have it printed to determine a "best match" in a particular printing environment.
All the above is just one reason why contract proofs are still important. If your customer is very picky about his spot color, then he needs to understand that converting it to CMYK is merely an approximation, and perfect matching is simply not possible. That's one reason why spot inks exist in the first place. If he is not willing to pay for five-color printing, then he will likely have to settle for a minor compromise.
JET

Can I replace Pantone color books in InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop?

These new Pantone + books are a pain in ...well... you understand. In my years as a designer, I have just clicked on the correct book and color swatch, but now...
I am using Windows 7 and the CS6 suite of products. We have a company logo in which both main colors have dramatically changed with the new books. I won't go into all of the tricks we've tried to be able to place it in new documents without the color changing. I now think the only answer is to replace the color books as Adobe recommends. I do have two questions, though.
First, can I change the books in all of my products? Adobe only gives instructions for Illustrator and InDesign, but I regularly have to change vendor logos into our company colors in photoshop, and I am finding the color in Photoshop isn't the same when I bring that logo into Illustrator, even though they have the same number.
Second, what are the end results if I do change the books when I send a document to a printer? We usually do our printing in-house, so I am wondering when we buy PMS 2955 if it will be what I see in the old books or the new books. And what will an out-of-house printer be using?
My main two concerns are (1) seeing the correct color on screen and (2) printing the correct color. I don't really care how I get there, but I'd like it to be a permanent fix so I don't have to go in and manipulate swatches every time I add a logo to an item.
Thanks for any help!
BTW - haven't been to this new forum format and don't know if I am posting this in the right place. If not, please help me find the correct location. Thanks!

HI this is good. But i have already seen this.
Its very informative but somehow i felt it lacks the punch and fun factor in a video. I need something which captivates and entrances the audience, not a speech kind of a thing.
Anything else??

How do I export a file with a CMYK color profile in Lightroom?

I'm trying to save a photo with a CMYK color profile to send to a company who will print it for me. I've looked at the color profiles installed on my computer, and quite a few CMYK profiles appear to be there (in /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/Recommended). I'm not sure if they need to be in the "Profiles" folder specifically, or if it matters that they're in a subfolder of that folder. This is on a Mac computer, by the way.
The problem is, when I go to export in Lightroom, and I choose "Other" in Color Profile, I'm not given any of the CMYK options.
Thanks for your help!
Ray

ray7199 wrote:
I'm trying to save a photo with a CMYK color profile to send to a company who will print it for me. I've looked at the color profiles installed on my computer, and quite a few CMYK profiles appear to be there (in /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/Recommended).
Above and beyond what Jeff and John have told you, be VERY careful converting RGB to CMYK unless you have the specific ICC profile for that print provider. Probably a lot safer to send them tagged RGB and let them convert the data. Converting with a profile that isn't specifically targeted for the print process will produce huge headache's for you and the shop and potentially awful output which is going to be expensive. Ask them if they can accept RGB and send them maybe sRGB which of course you can do from Lightroom.

Assorted "color book" in Illustrator

Hello all,
I have been trying to create an assorted color book, essentially an array of differently colored rectangles with their respective CMYK formulas displayed underneath. Currently, I have an excel document as well as a "tab-delimited" text document of a very large quantity of CMYK combinations that I would like to be able to make the aformentioned color book from. Creating the rectangles and entering their formulas by hand would be possible, but also unrealistic for this large of a quantity so I am trying to automate the process in any way that I can. Unfortunately, I am not very skilled with scripting in javascript, so I am looking for some help. I know enough about programming to be able to make small changes to fine tune a script so any help would be appreciated
Essentially I would be looking for the script to take the formula, make a square with that CMYK combination, create a text box with that formula typed out underneath the block, and then keep repeating the previous steps for the remaining combinations by placing the blocks in a line.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2877951
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3813617
The links above contain code that are similar to what i have been trying to work with before making this post.
I would greatly appreciate any help with this project and thank you all in advance for your help

Here you go, one Javascript to fit. It creates a new document in CMYK mode, with the required number of artboards. (Getting that right took more time than writing the entire drawing stuff, too!)
You can change the page and rectangle sizes near the top; adjust to fit your needs.
I do hope, though, you are using CS4 or older -- I can't test but I bet it will draw everything upside down for CS5!
//DESCRIPTION:Make Color Book From CSV
// A Jongware Script 15-Jan-2011
// Large parts for reading CSV shamelessly pilfered from
// Muppet Mark, http://forums.adobe.com/message/2877951#2877951
// The CSV is assumed to have this format:
// Cyan,Magenta,Yellow,Black
// separated by commas, color values in percents (so 100 = full)
// This sets up a landscape A4 document. Adjust for your own needs.
// My values are in mm, so they need converting to points for Illy.
// You can also enter sizes in inches -- use in2pt for that, as in:
// width = in2pt (8.5)
// height = in2pt (11);
// to set Letter size
// or use cm2pt(..) if you prefer centimeters
// ... no need to convert points, so if you like these
// simply enter
// width = 800;          // value is in points
width = mm2pt (297);
height = mm2pt (210);
// Size and distance per color rectangle
// The vertical distance needs to be enough for
// your by-line to fit.
rectwidth = mm2pt(20);
rectheight = mm2pt(15);
distancex = mm2pt (4);
distancey = mm2pt (8);
// These get recalculated to center the entire block
// of colors nicely on the page size.
leftoffset = 0;
topoffset = 0;
if (isOSX())
          var csvFile = File.openDialog('Select a CSV File', function (f) { return !f.hidden && ((f instanceof Folder) || f.name.match(/\.csv$/i));} );
} else
          var csvFile = File.openDialog('Select a CSV File','comma-separated-values(*.csv):*.csv;');
if (csvFile != null)
          fileArray = readInCSV(csvFile);
          var columns = fileArray[0].length;
//          alert('CSV file has ' + columns + ' columns…');
          var rows = fileArray.length;
//          alert('CSV file has ' + rows + ' rows…');
          if (columns == 4 && rows > 0)
                    doc = createDocument (fileArray.length);
                    if (doc)
                              drawRects (doc, fileArray);
                    else
                              alert ("Rectangle and Page Sizes do not add up!");
          } else
                    alert ("CSV is not in the expected format");
function createDocument (numrects)
          // How many rectangles in horizontal?
          horzrange = Math.floor((width+distancex)/(rectwidth+distancex));
          // And vertical?
          vertrange = Math.floor((height+distancey)/(rectheight+distancey));
          if (horzrange < 1 || vertrange < 1)
                    return null;
          // How many artboards do we need?
          numartb = Math.ceil (numrects/(horzrange*vertrange));
//          alert ("We need "+numartb+" artboards");
          leftoffset = (width+distancex-horzrange*(rectwidth+distancex))/2;
          topoffset = (height+distancey-vertrange*(rectheight+distancey))/2;
          doc = app.documents.add (DocumentColorSpace.CMYK, width, height, numartb, DocumentArtboardLayout.GridByCol);
          return doc;
function drawRects (doc, array)
          black = new GrayColor();
          black.gray = 100;
          xpos = 0;
          ypos = 0;
          artb = 0;
//          alert (doc.artboards[artb].artboardRect);
          for (i = 0; i < array.length; i++)
                    color = new CMYKColor();
                    try {
                              color.cyan = Number(array[i][0]);
                              color.magenta = Number(array[i][1]);
                              color.yellow = Number(array[i][2]);
                              color.black = Number(array[i][3]);
                    } catch (_)
                              alert ("Failed on line #"+i);
                              return;
                    rect = doc.pathItems.rectangle (doc.artboards[artb].artboardRect[1]-topoffset-ypos, doc.artboards[artb].artboardRect[0]+leftoffset+xpos, rectwidth, rectheight);
                    rect.strokeColor = black;
                    rect.strokeWidth = 0.5;
                    rect.fillColor = color;
                    t = doc.textFrames.add();
                    t.left = doc.artboards[artb].artboardRect[0]+leftoffset+xpos+rectwidth/2;
                    t.top = doc.artboards[artb].artboardRect[1]-topoffset-ypos-rectheight;
                    t.contents = array[i][0]+" / "+array[i][1]+" / "+array[i][2]+" / "+array[i][3];
                    t.paragraphs[0].justification = Justification.CENTER;
                    t.paragraphs[0].size = 8;
                    xpos += rectwidth + distancex;
                    if (xpos + rectwidth > width)
                              xpos = 0;
                              ypos += rectheight + distancey;
                              if (ypos+rectheight > height)
                                        ypos = 0;
                                        artb++;
function mm2pt (val)
          return val*72/25.4;
function cm2pt (val)
          return val*72/2.54;
function in2pt (val)
          return val*72;
function isOSX()
return $.os.match(/Macintosh/i);
function readInCSV(fileObj)
          var fileArray = new Array();
          fileObj.open('r');
          fileObj.seek(0, 0);
          while(!fileObj.eof)
                    var thisLine = fileObj.readln();
                    if (thisLine.indexOf(',') > 0)
                              fileArray.push(thisLine.split(','));
          fileObj.close();
          return fileArray;

How should CMYK colors be built? Is it OK to use all three of CMY?

This is a general question I'm posing here because I think it is the forum that is frequented by the largest number of people with real world print project management experience.
The question is: in an ideal world, how should CMYK color be built? Lets assume I know the LAB values for several colors I want to reproduce accurately on an offset printing press. I can install the correct ICC Profile in my color management settings, input the LAB values, and let InDesign do the conversion to CMYK for me.
However, I have been told by print professionals that, if at all possible, don't define a color swatch using all three CMY inks. Instead, use a maximum of two of CMY plus a K percentage. In other words, the ideal for printing CMYK screen tint mixes is to use percentages that use high GCR formulas - i.e. replace CMY with K where possible. This, so the the theory goes, helps to increase color stability on press.
I guess in reality I have two questions: is that rule of thumb valid/useful? And if so...do I have any control over it in InDesign?

That was my personal opinion guys as a contributor to this forum thread - it should be taken as an opinion only of course :) Using either or is obviously perfectly OK, I'm just a fan of using MDT to build and capture source images over Configuration Manager
for a variety of reasons.
My main point was that a build and capture Task Sequence can be used regardless of the requirement for a thin or thick image and that you can pause and resume a build and capture process to suit your requirements (and in my opinion MDT would be perfect for
your situation). You should of course use Config Manager to deploy your Windows 8.1 custom image if you have that option.
I've used capture media in the past and wouldn't recommend it. There's no technical reason, just my opinion :)
Cheers
Damon

How do I add Pantone Color Books to Illustrator CC?

I'm used to using the Pantone Process color book in illustrator, but it's missing from my Illustrator CC. How can I add it? I had it at work, so I assume it is a standard color book, because my work never paid for anything extra. I see I have a Pantone+ CMYK Coated color book, but the names of the swatches are different from Pantone Solid to Process color book I'm used to.

oh. then you are requesting for the old pantone books?
here you go
Dropbox - pantones.zip
let me know when you've got it because i'd like to delete it.

Converting from pantone to cmyk color mode in Indesign CS3??

I am working on a business card for a customer, I am using Adobe Indesign CS3.
I use an outside company for the printing job called 4over (4over.com) and they require you use their cmyk pdf print engine so they can do the job properly... Basically to break it down: I am in Indesign CS3, I choose Print, and as the printer I choose their "4over pdf cmyk print engine" so the colors do not convert and the color doesnt change when they use their printers.
4over is telling me my document is in pantone color mode, they can see the pantone color 371C, but not the cmyk values.
How do I change from pantone color mode to cmyk color mode???
if anyone can help me please. I would really appreciate it.
I attached the file I sent to 4over incase that helps anyone answer my question.
Thank you,
Brandon

Before exporting, in the swatch panel, select your Pantone colour, right click and select swatch options. Change the color type to Process and the color mode to CMYK.
If it's a business card and you showed the client a pantone swatch, know that you won't get the same colour results. There's a very useful Pantone book available that shows swatches side by side with CMYK values.
http://www.pantone.com/pages/products/product.aspx?pid=283&ca=1&s=4

Illustrator CS4, new Pantone color books, color channel issue

Since I installed the new Pantone color books, I've been running in a major issue which will affect our whole production line.
If an Illustrator CS4 file contains a Photoshop CS4 image which is using an "old" Pantone color in a color channel, it cannot be opened and I get an error message "File is unreadable". If I replace the "old" Pantone colour with its new equivalent in the color channel in Photoshop, the file can be opened normally.
In our work environment, this means going through all our images to check which one is using a color channel. A painful and time wasting procedure. Furthermore, if one of our suppliers doesn't have the new color books, they won't be able to open any of the files, both Photoshop and Illustrator, so they have no way to revert back to the old Pantone.
Is there another way to fix this?
Thank you

More on the Pantone PLUS saga, hoping to get some input from the users of this forum. I find their silence deafening, to say the least. This is a serious issue, that will cost our agency hours and hours of work if it isn't addressed. And we've already wasted hours of troubleshooting and discussions on how we could resolve it.
We're actually testing a workaround: using both the old and the new libraries in Illustrator. After consulting our suppliers, we've learned that this is what they also do. For them, it's a one shot to get the file to print. For us, it means cheating with files that will get edited again in the future. And the Pantone installer removes the old Pantone books from the Adobe folders for a reason which is mentioned on the download page:
The reason that the PANTONE Color Libraries that had been built into Illustrator need to be removed and replaced with the PANTONE PLUS Color Libraries is that, in Illustrator, a PANTONE Color can only have one data point with which it is associated. In the short term, in order to benefit from the new colors and data associated in PLUS, the PANTONE Libraries that are installed with Adobe Illustrator are removed and replaced with the new PLUS Libraries.
http://www.pantone.com/pages/Pantone/Pantone.aspx?pg=20721&ca=1
I worry this may lead to another bunch of issue, knowing how easily AI files get corrupted. What I need to know is:
What is the exact meaning of the Pantone warning about the "one data point per color?
What are the long term implications of using both Pantone libraries in an Adobe file? Or in the Adobe app?

Illustrator CS6 / CC and previous Pantone color books

Hi all, I've understood that Illustrator CS6 / CC has the new Pantone+ color books, those color books doesn't have CMYK values so the default of rIllustrator CS6 / CC is to use the Lab values when I add a Pantone swatches to my document. One of my customers, that is a print industry, need to have the old Pantone with CMYK values to maintain the same color rendition on old and continuative jobs. Adobe says that I can load the old Pantone color books from CS5 and change the swatches option so that Illustrator use the CMYK values: http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/pantone-plus.html The problem is that this doesn't work for me and for my customer, even if I change the swatches option Illustrator continue to load only the Lab values from the older CS5 Pantone color books... anyone of you has a solution?

I am running into the same issue. Both links suggested did not work for me. In a document I created in CS4 (the old document) and opened in CC there is a square with the color Pantone 519U in which it converts to C:67% M:100% Y:30% K:10%. These are the numbers to be expected. If I copy the square that is 519U in the old document and paste it in the same old document the color remains the same.
I create a new document in CC (the new document). From the old document I copy the Pantone 519U square and paste it in the new document. The resulting square in the new document is a washed out purple. The new document square converts to C:57.27% M:68.83% Y:35.06% K:13.06%.
Again I followed Workaround 1 in the link. I obtained the old Pantone Libraries from my CS4 machine so it is not a library issue. I have also created a new Document Profile where I set the Spot Color to be "Use CMYK values from the manufacturer's process books". I am seeing the same problem before and after the workaround.

Color Books in Illustrator CS6 (Creative Cloud)

I have recently purchased a MacBook Pro and I am using Creative Cloud to download my programs. I have downloaded Illustrator CS6, and I am trying to replace the new Pantone + color books with the older versions. I have done this in the past on Windows with no issues.
On my Mac I can not find the new document profiles folder so I can change the spot color. I go into the Adobe folder and there is no Illustrator folder in there. Does anyone know where it would be, or why it is not in there?
Mac OS: [user]/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator CS6/[lang]/New Document Profiles
Also open to any other workarounds for getting the old color books. I need all of the old color books, not just a few swatches, so workaround 2 in this document below will not help me.
Document I have been using - http://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/kb/pantone-plus.html
Thanks in Advance! Hopefully someone will have a solution for me :-(

The path for the New Document Profiles should be Mac HD/Users/<yourname>/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Adobe Illustrator CSX/en_US/ which is a hidden folder in OS10.7 and later. Do a Google search for how to access this folder. The Pantone color books go in Mac HD/Applications/Adobe Illustrator CSX/Presets/Swatches/Color Books.

PDF in CMYK color space?

I'm working on the most recent version of Pages from iWork 2008 running on the most recent version of Leopard, and I have to create a PDF in the CMYK color space for publication, but I do not have Acrobat Distiller.
Is it possible to create a CMYK PDF with ColorSync filters? I have tried using the "Generate PDF-X/3" filter, with "Generic CMYK" as the target profile and transparency flattening, but the printer still says that my PDF is in the RGB color space. If not, is there any other way to create a CMYK PDF from Pages or to convert a RGB PDF or PostScript file to CMYK using ColorSync Utility? Are there any alternatives without purchasing Adobe Acrobat? What about if I first convert images to the CMYK color space before importing them to Pages?
I have seen similar questions posted elsewhere, but I can't find a straight answer anywhere.

1. Obtain the ICC profile from the printer for his output device.
Correct. Either the shop printing condition or an ISO 12647 printing condition to which the shop can configure and calibrate the printing condition it is selling you. If the latter, you can get default ICC printer profiles for standard printing conditions at www.eci.org.
2. Create a filter in ColorSync Utility for generating PDF/X-3 documents with the ICC profile as the output intent (besides flattening the transparency and applying an appropriate resolution).
Correct.
3. Print to PDF in Pages.
Incorrect.
Your PDF/X-3 filter will become available in the system dialog for File > Print > Save as PDF. In saving as PDF you pick your PDF/X-3 filter as the template for the save process.
4. Use ColorSync Utility to modify the resulting PDF with the filter I created in ColorSync Utility.
(or 3-4. Print directly to PDF through the filter from Pages)
Your second step to combine 3 and 4 is correct, your first step 4 to save to disk and then postprocess in the ColorSync utility is incorrect.
5. Send this PDF/X-3 to the printer.
Correct.
It seems that no hard conversion from RGB to CMYK should be necessary if I take these steps, is that correct?
Correct.
If I send the printer a PDF in the RGB color space, should it cause problems for him to convert the PDF himself to the color space of his output device?
No.
You create three channel RGB images in the RGB colourant data model (it's just a model, it is not a colour space which a size and a shape of the gamut).
You save your colourants to disk in TIFF or PDF format with the ICC profile for the capture colour space (e.g. the ICC profile for your specific scanner with a Kodak EktaChrome IT8) or correction colour space (e.g. Joseph Holmes' RGB working space for EktaChrome). This ICC profile is the _colour space_ that you can view in the ColorSync Utility as a specific size and shape of gamut. The colour space determines what colours the colourants in your TIFF or PDF image should reproduce on different colour devices.
You now have a pagination with photographic objects in three component RGB, and you know what colours those colourants are supposed to reproduce. You then include the production profile for the printing condition. Your source profiles must match to this destination profile in the matching session, so all your photographs get converted to the SAME ink limit, the SAME graybalance and so forth. This unifies the inking behaviour and the colour formation for your printing.
If you imagine that in your pagination you place photographs which are manually converted into four component CMYK using a different ink limit, a different graybalance and so forth then you have not unified your inking behavour and colour formation for the printing process. This is IDIOTIC because the only way to correct in this case is to change the calibration of the individual inking zones on the offset press - increasing or decreasing the cyan, magenta, yellow or black for that zone.
It used to be that lithography on the press was the only way to work. This was in the days of EPS and EPS DCS, and before that in the days of photographic printing masters pasted together manually piece by piece to make the printing planes. Nobody in their right mind works that way today.
/hh

'Convert CMYK Colors to RGB' still runs havoc in 9! (Plus a PDF version problem)

This post is to warn people about severe issues, and how to avoid them. Issues with the CMYK color setting in FM9.x have been reported here earlier, such as:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/1237696#1237696
http://forums.adobe.com/message/1237852#1237852
http://forums.adobe.com/message/1237165#1237165
However, I do not think this issue has been warned about anywhere near as much as it should have. And, as usual, Adobe is silent (they should have a big poster on their site warning about this issue! And they have even claimed that patches have "solved" the issues with CMYK).
Just recently, while experimenting with FM9 again, I had extreme problems, which, at first, seemed totally unrelated to this CMYK setting. But after having struggled extremely hard for many many many hours, I finally found out. Now is the time to inform others:
First a note about versions: FrameMaker 9.0p237, Acrobat Distiller 9.1, XP SP2
It looks perfectly okay on screen in FrameMaker, exactly as in FM8. But when saved as pdf, several things are "corrupted". Examples: no kerning after the letter 'T', such as the word 'Text'. Dotted leader for a right aligned tab disappears. Some objects from the master pages, such as a logo, become enclosed in a rectangle (a border of the frame/object), but it only happens on *some* body pages, whereas other body pages using the same master page are ok!!? Equations are formatted differently from the way they should, with the wrong font for number, etcetera.
Solutions:
1. When 'Save as PDF...', untick 'Convert CMYK Colors to RGB' in PDF Setup. Same setting is in the file's 'Format > Document > PDF Setup...'
A drawback with this method is that, as of Acrobat Distiller v9, it does not seem to respect the pdf version specified in the PDF job Options! I get PDF 1.6 with this method, despite my job option specifies version 1.5. (This happens also with FrameMaker 8 if Acrobat is v9.) So you *have* to optimize it in Acrobat in order to get a web friendly PDF (PDF 1.4 or 1.5).
or
2. Print to 'Adobe PDF'.
In this latter case, you can set the same 'PDF Setup' settings under the button 'Setup...', EXCEPT that there is no tick box for 'Convert CMYK Colors to RGB', and it does not matter what setting you have chosen in the file's 'Format > Document > PDF Setup...', it will be RGB conversion in any case. Make sure that after you exit the setting, the tick box for 'Print to File' is NOT ticked! This method respects the pdf version specified in the PDF job Options! I get PDF 1.5, which is what my job option specifies.
(For some reason, Acrobat/Reader does not render these two PDFs exactly the same, except in extreme magnification! Maybe it has to do with the different PDF versions of the files.)
In either case, the solution actually solves ALL problems I listed! Despite it seems to have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with colors! Some day in the distant future, CMYK might actually work! But, for myself, I would prefer a proper color management instead...
Best Regards,
/Harald

Oops!! Not until now I discover that under 'Solutions' I happened to write 'untick' where it should be 'tick'! I.e, colors SHOULD be converted to RGB in order to circumvent the problems! I.e it runs havoc in v9 when CMYK colors are NOT converted to RGB! Don't know how I came to write the opposite, but probably I started out by describing the situation where the problems are seen rather than describing how to avoid them.
Equally strange is that nobody corrected me, but perhaps the mistake was so obvious? (But whether you see problems or not might depend on what fonts you use. So, under certain special circumstances, CMYK might actually work without these reported problems.)
I am also a bit surprised that others haven't reported the issue that the PDF version set in PDF job Options isn't respected when using 'Save As PDF' and Acrobat 9? (Or maybe someone has, but I have missed it.)

CMYK color chart/color book -- any recommendations?

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