Belinda Beckinsale wrote
I have a question that has been bothering me about the
the gray balance not
being set to traditional standards.
I can understand the concept that the profile will make the yellow appropriate
to what the press is actually printing, but what happens when you get a job on
a press that has been imposed with files from a number of different suppliers.
We work with a lot of magazines, and many of the advertising pages are
supplied pdf files that are sent straight to the printer (ie we do not do the
colour work on them). If an imposition contains some pages that have been set
using traditional gray balance (eg 75 65 65 90 etc) and some pages that have
been done using a profile such as the ISO web coated that uses a very
different gray balance, with a lot less yellow, then how is the printer meant
to handle balancing two very different gray balances in the same sheet? If the
case is that print does have a lot more yellow in the shadow, and therefore
less in the profile (which has been the case in all the press profiles that I
have built), this obviously isn't a new thing since the advent of colour
management, so why are our traditional gray balances suddenly seen as being
wrong? This may not be a problem with ISO or SWOP profiles that have GCR and
aren't really relying on CMY to make neutrals, but what about when the idea of
tailor making your own profiles to suit your press really takes off, and
different separations and black generations get used? Is there perhaps a case
for a gray balanced CMYK 'working space' like there is in RGB? (ie work is
done in this space and then converted to the appropriate press space). This
would probably cause less arguments with scanner operators. Lets face it, the
ideal RGB workflow is still not a workable reality for a lot of pre-press.
Also, there was a comment earlier that you don't want to set your scan range
in RGB from 0 to 255 for the same reason that you would not set it to 0 to 100
for CMYK. I'm just wondering if this is unecessarily limiting the range of the
scan. You don't actually print the RGB scan, it gets converted to a CMYK
profile which would then handle what can actually be printed from that data
(if that makes sense). Maybe I haven't fully thought through the logic of
this, but any yays or nays would be appreciated.
This is a major issue, ISO profiles are aimed it a standard printing
condition, SID, TVI and all that! If you have other 'unknown' CMYK files do
you know what printing conditions they are for?
Do the advertisers have a CMYK spec to meet, set by the publishers, if so is
this ISO?
If you are getting a lot of mystery CMYK files or CMYK profiled to other
printing conditions they are unlikely to print correctly using ISO
standards.
You need to use workflow tools, such us CMYK Optimiser to change the PDF's
via a devise link profile to the CMYK (ISO?) you need.
Regards
Paul Sherfield
The Missing Horse Consultancy Ltd
Telephone: 01442 871752
Mobile: 07899 906385