Hi,
there is one thing that has kept chasing me for quite a while now, and
I'd like to share this with you for some possibly interesting discussion:
Assumptions:
- at least some 'color management' - whether correctly or not - is done
everywhere (and be it only conversion to CMYK or retouching in CMYK of
some image in Photoshop)
- for most documents that get printed on a printing press any necessary
conversion to CMYK or establishment of CMYK values - again: whether
correctly or not - is done early on in the food chain (e.g. by the
designer or layouter, as opposed to the printer)
- in terms of number of different pages produced altogether, more pages
are created by not so professional people but also often printed in
smaller print runs, whereas a comparably smaller number of pages printed
in higher print runs (magazine/newspaper ads, catalogues, direct mailing
pieces, packaging, etc.) is typically produced by more professional
people (though your mileage may vary significantly ;->)
- the number of printers (i.e. people/companies running print presses) is
relatively small when compared to the number of people creating/producing
pages to be printed on presses.
- the number of people in the graphic arts industry who master color
management (i.e. they get it right nearly all of the time) is relatively
small; these people are typically more often found down stream in the
food chain, often as staff in high quality prepress service providers or
prepress departments of larger agencies/industry customers/printers.
- anybody else in the industry - for more than one reason - is having a
hard time getting color management right and getting reliable results
- those professionals mastering color management typically have learnt
that real color management is about process control: know what your color
will look like, and how to make sure it does look like that in the end
(i.e. after having been printed on the press). They accept that quite
often it might have been possible to get 'better' color, but due to the
fact that under the given circumstances it has not been possible to
predict and control in what way the color would have been better these
people resort to slightly less ideal, but predictable color.
- many other people involved in the graphic arts industry - whether those
working inside it or those buying its services - are (often unknowingly)
rather looking for the best possible result. They do not mind if a repeat
print run looks slightly different as long as it looks 'nice' (though
this is less true for specific colors, e.g. Coca Cola will always want
that their Coca Cola red looks as much the same all the time as possible).
Conclusions:
- at the moment the majority of people who are (knowingly or unknowingly)
doing color management (e.g. conversion of a digital camera image from
some kind of ICC based RGB to whatever kind of CMYK, editing of color in
CMYK on screen, judging color from a color print printed from CMYK data)
... do no have a clue about color management
... do not have ideal equipment to do color management well
... do not have the means nor the knowledge or experience
to set up equipment for reliable color management
which means this in a way is like asking a deaf person to listen to the
radio and write down what they understood from the broadcast.
- because of files today being often delivered digitally directly from
the creating side to the printing side there are no gateways anymore as
there were until a couple of years ago in the form of service bureaus
that imaged files onto film and, where desired/required, did analogue
proofs. This hurts some printers more than others: for example,
newspapers are complaining quite often that total ink coverage for ads is
sometimes too high, the reason being that some image was converted to
CMYK in Photoshop using for example a Euroscale profile.
- one of the reasons printers can nevertheless get their presses going
somehow and can produce more or less pleasant looking results is that not
so professional people often screw up their data in similar ways (so
certain heuristics, once found, will compensate for similar problems in
most of the files). Nevertheless there are often also pages ending up on
the same sheet that have significantly different characteristics.
Applying a heuristic to improve one of the pages will deteriorate one of
the other pages on the same sheet.
- having color management done early on in the food chain by people who
do not master it means that a lot of options to get it right again are
unretrievably lost. If on the other hand files had been left in their
initial color space, more professional people further downstream had
better options to convert images/pages to a more reliable, more
predictable, more easily producible and nicer result.
- also, in terms of overall economy, it is much smarter to have the fewer
people at printing plants and associated prepress departments/service
bureaus learn to master color management than trying to educate the
masses (whose job description most of the time does not include a bit
about color reproduction as such) towards some pretty complex matter.
Summary:
- prefer digital files with as much device independent color retained as
possible (though it will always be acceptable if a professional document
creator submits device dependent CMYK files - they know what they are
doing...)
- establish knowledge and equipment at every printer or at a service
provider associated with every printer that enables the printer to
convert incoming digital files to device dependent data appropriate for
the printing process at hand
- be pragmatic about the strategy: if files seem to come from
professionals, convert 'as is'; if files seem to come from not so
professionals, convert them in a way to make them 'as nice/pleasant as
possible'.
- the ideal format for this is PDF/X-3: it accommodates both device
dependent and device independent data in any combination.
- also, there are now enough decent tools (with varying degrees of
quality and price tag) available - especially iQueue from Gretag Macbeth,
SuperColor from Heidelberg, Acrobat 6 Professional from Adobe, Quite A
Box Of Tricks from Quite - to easily color convert PDF files to process
specific CMYK.
Essence:
It is not smart to request CMYK files from people who do not understand
color. Instead by default postpone color conversion to CMYK as long as
possible. Promote PDF/X-3 as the natural carrier for digital files that
maintains all options and can handle files from professionals as well as
from not so professionals.
Olaf Druemmer