Hello,
Very
interesting post. There are a few things I would like to ask about,
however.
Andre Schützenhofer wrote:
> We run a device independent workflow in
reproduction since a couple of years now and noticed large increasement of
quality and efficiency.
Are
you a print house? Great that you have been able to implement such a
workflow since a couple of yearas ago. What percentage of your clients
would you estimate give you RGB PDF/X-3 documents? Or in the case that you
are a prepress house, what percentage of printhouses ask you for RGB PDF/X-3
documents?
> From this viewpoint, in a sense it does not
really matter which kind of colorspaces are in PDFX3 - we only have to take care
of the right
> choice in correct rendering to the output
intent.
>This sounds too easy to be
possible, but in fact today's workflow-tools are sophisticated enough to allow
this on a high professional level.
Are
you saying that you are using some application that makes on-the-fly decisions
about whether to use a RelCol or Perceptual trasnfomation depending on the
image? If you don't mind divulging secrets, I would be very interested to
know.
> PDFX3 gives us all options - completely
CMYK or completely RGB or completely mixed, preferably device independent. No
reason to be scared.
I definitely agree - we currently set up CMYK PDF/X-3
workflows and it works very well.
> The
process of decision works simple: if there is no profile attached or obviously a
wrong one, we do not assume that the creator of this file
> really expects that the outcome
will be exactly like anything he saw on his equipment. So he will be satisfied
with a pleasing look.
As you
mention, when an image comes in with an incorrect profile or no profile, a
decision must be made using the monitor output as to which profile to
assign - and there are not so many choices as it may seem at first (usually
three or 4 at most) But, it is not so easy to know what is pleasing.
If you are fotunate and have images with known colors or people in them,
for example the decision is usually much easier but this is often not the
case. Ex. Images from art books (of course with an abstract painting
just about anything could be "pleasing" or not "pleasing"), fashion shots - many
times the photographer is looking for a mood depending upon the type
of clothes the advertising is aimed at (greenish skintones, or for the
younger generation, very dark images which have almost no shadow detail).
Assigning a profile with a 1.8 gama, for instance, looks much more "pleasing",
but is incorrect. Furniture - the wood tones change greatly
depending upon whether sRGB or Adobe RGB is
assigned.
>We never
had real problems from that with proofed or printed
data, because in the mind of them only the proof shows what they will get - and
that >is what we give them.
You
have not had problems with your proof being substantially different from some
other place the client may have gone before or after your
site?
Can you explain,
also, what security measures you employ with RGB images when the results
are not what the client expected?
Regards.
Darrian Young