Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
thing is a work in progress so one can draw many conclusions as to whom
is at fault for the current chaos. It takes a dedicated user to fully under-
stand the ins and outs with respect to proper color control at any given
stage of the process. Knowing when to do what and why is often a myth-
ical god for most. Clearly, color management needs to be more user-
friendly as well as streamlined within the current architecture to facilitate
a higher reliability factor.
Another topic completely separate from these, is that not all profile
creation software are created equal. Each software company has its own
secret sauce on how to generate profiles. There are good and bad points
within every application. Some applications generate beautiful high-color
contrast separations with eye-popping color fidelity while sacrificing lin-
earity. Others create more linear pleasing color, but are not able to reach
full saturation points and wind up clipping or compressing tonal ranges
overall even though the destination color space can handle a much wider
gamut. Others allow for precise black generation editing and some do not
allow any at all or very little. Some just flat out suck in all categories.
Thomas Knoll, one of the creators of Photoshop, has generated default
CMYK separation profiles taking all things into consideration in the
reproduction process for print. If you are generating separations to a
device that is within SWOP standards, I think you'll find using the Adobe
default v2 profiles will yield superior separations in every criteria to pre-
serve the appearance after the conversion to CMYK. Unfortunately, there
is no way to adjust black generation within the canned profiles, but then
again, the profiles are extremely good if your target output is within the
SWOP tolerance.
If you decide to dive into creating your own custom profiles there are
some warnings that I think users should be aware of. There seems to be
a lack of standards in standard color swatch target. For example: The
ECI2002 target is considered a standard target to use when creating pro-
files for CMYK devices. Depending upon which profile creation package
you choose, this target may have the color swatches positioned within
the target in a different order. This is not to be confused with some soft-
ware packages that allow the user to generate a custom patch sequence
for the target. This issue has to do with supplied “default” targets of a
particular alleged standard. Just be forewarned to use the target that is
supplied by the profile creation software and not some recommended
target from an unknown source. This will eliminate mass confusion as
well as rabbit hole research trips into insanity!
Also, there are a few things to be aware of with respect to monitor
previews relative to hard copies. Color previews in image editing appli-
cations still fall short of showing the full color gamut of yellows because
the CMYK color gamut is larger in yellows relative to what a monitor can
replicate. Some clipping of fully saturated yellows is inevitable with the
current technology of monitors. There's also an issue with cyan/blue hues
not replicating completely accurate within the monitor preview due to
Search WWH ::




Custom Search