Lack of Contrast in Photos with Color Proof ON

Question

Hello, I never really worked with digital images inside Illustrator, so now that i have to prepare one for printing, I'm struggling with the following problem:
All colors in CMYK;
Document Color Mode - CMYK;
and here we see that Color Proof results in significant lack of contrast:
I tried to convert the photo between CMYK and RGB - results are the same.
The strangest thing is that Color Proof in Photoshop (with same profiles) doesn't show this problem; only Illustrator does.
I also tried to convert the whole work into RGB, and even though Color Proof worked fine, printed image was still dusky.
What am i doing wrong?
Please advice.
Thanks,
Maximus

Answer 1

What am i doing wrong?
Basically, harboring unrealistic expectations when looking at a glowing RGB additive monitor or composite desktop printer to "proof" subtractive process color. Approximation is all you are going to get. It's pretty dang good approximation these days, but true accuracy is a pipedream. Monitors glow. Ink on paper doesn't. Monitors don't have every tiny dot of color surrounded by color diluting white. Ink-on-paper does.
And your eyes constantly adjust when viewing either. So even if you achieve colorimetric accuracy, that doesn't mean you achieve pleasing color. What you're looking for is an entirely different thing.
...huge lack of contrast...
But increase in detail. Look at your two images in post number 4. Look closely. Note the additional detail in the shadow regions (the gym equipment) of the version on the right. That difference is what the "preview" is effectively trying to simulate.
As a matter of course, any colorimetric conversion from RGB to CMYK is going to tend to "dull" (desaturate) and "flatten" (lower contrast). The preview is actually doing a decent job of simulating that. That's what it's supposed to do. (But it's still just an approximation, because you're still  converting it back to RGB in order to display it on your monitor.)
Don't think of the preivew as a look at the unavoidable end of how "accurately" the process is going to retain the "good color" of your image. Think of it as a depiction of how the limitations of the process will affect your image as it currently is; think of it as an invaluable clue of what you might need to do to the image toward the goal of achieving a better final reproduction.
I do realize that in perfect world i could simply ask printing office for their printer's profile and make adjustments based on that profile...
And all you would accomplish by that is a measure of device calibration, not of what your image needs, which is color correction.
All the painstaking "color management" (calibration), and tedious conversion profiles, etc., etc. in the world don't know didly about what's important in any given image.
You think the left image in post 4 is "better" because the contrast is greater in the model. But calibration software thinks that image is "worse" because it is less "accurate" in that it contains fewer discrete colors than the process can deliver overall.
(By the way, your mentioning of switching between color modes is a bit unnerving. I hope you're not switching between RGB and CMYK repeatedly in willy-nilly, back-and-forth fashion. If you are, you are irreparably degrading your color as you go.)
Everything in preparing images for CMYK offset repro is a balancing act. One balancing act is that which exists between contrast and detail. Gains in one require sacrifices in the other. Calibration software can't do that for you. It's a value judgement call; and it's different for every image.
So you learn to put the contrast where you need it within the image. You do this by adjusting curves in your raster imaging program. That, in a nutshell, is what your image needs in order for the colorimetric conversion to CMYK to retain some of the contrast and saturation you want to retain in the right half of the image.
....but local companies are far from being perfect and most of the time they don't even know how their printers work...anyway, it's a really sad story.
Just as sad as the even more common story of prima donna designers who want to sweat blood over their erudite artistic sensitivity to ill-defined "good color" and blame printers for failing to maintain it through hair-splitting colorimetric "accuracy," because they think it beneath them (or too painful) to roll up their sleeves and buckle down to learning practical color repro theory. (Not beating you up here; we've all been guilty of this at some point.)
...it became principle for me to understand why this is happening.
Yes.  If you expect to produce truly "good" color, it's up to you to understand the principles and processes involved (and their limitations) in order to intelligently tweak those limitations to advantage. It doesn't happen overnight. It's not something you achieve in one image and thereafter have a formulaic solution for every image thereafter. It cones with study, continual practice, and ongoing experience. It's not a one-size-fits-all something which someone can step you through with a bunch of specific settings in an online forum thread.
As a good start: Acquire a copy of Professional Photoshop by Dan Margulis. Any edition will do. (There were five or six--get as many as you can find.) Read it. Read it again. And again. Then keep it as an onshelf reference. And use the principles of color correction (as opposed to mere color calibration) it teaches in every image you prepare for offset printing. You'll get better at it as you go, but you'll never achieve a single set of adjustments or settings that work for every image.
JET