Who, among those active in this thread, actually produces Inkscape

data for printing on a regular basis?

Me :)

What does your print service know about this issue? (Assuming you've

asked, of course.)

They only accept files using CMYK colorsystem. Usually we send in CDR (CorelDRAW) format for film (photolith). When it is a CTP service we send in PDF format. When I use Inkscape to draw the art, I need to use the extension "Export TIFF CMYK". Then I generate a TIFF of all the work, put in Scribus and generate a PDF in CMYK. Never got problem with that. When I need to generate PDF with CMYK values for vector graphics (text for example) I have 2 options: from Scribus import SVG and convert the RGB values to CMYK using the plugin "rgb2cmyk" or in Inkscape using the extension "Export PDF CMYK".

It is a bit strange to talk in CMYK and RGB ICC profiles been extremely essential for printing. For example, most users and even designers that use proprietary software doesn't even know what is a ICC profile - they will know this just when someone asks. Get my point: those people just open a software, draw and save in CMYK, they doesn't adjust any ICC profile. Of course, using ICC profiles is the best. But not in all cases.

In my case, I need to get the exact value of CMYK that I put in Inkscape into the off set plate. Could some ICC profile help me in it? My experience says "no".

Who, among those lurking, is a printer who understands the issue being

discussed?

I think I'm understanding :)

Would you be willing to publish a work flow that you would find

technically competent?

I can suggest you about the Brazilian Inkscape Users Wiki, here:

http://wiki.softwarelivre.org/InkscapeBrasil/EspecificacaoCMYK

Thanks for the attention.

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Michal Suchanek <hramrach@...2406....> wrote:

On 15 September 2010 18:29, John Culleton <john@...1202...> wrote:

>
> The physical printing press will either use spot colors or the process
> colors of CMYK. That is the target. That is how modern printing
> presses work. They mix those four colors and not Red Green and Blue.
> So I suggest:
>
> 1. Use CMYK from the beginning to develop a print document. This gets
> around the smaller gamut problem.
>
> 2. For exact colors don't depend on a monitor representation,
> calibrated or no. Take the CMYK values and look them up on e.g. Galaxy
> Color Gauge Color Pro. This still won't be "exact exact" but it will
> be the closest you can get without having the printer produce a proof
> copy.
>
> As my father used say, don't fight the problem. Printing presses use
> process colors AKA CMYK. Work backwards from that.
>

Well, they actually don't. Most at least half-professional print shops
work with six colors or more to make the available color space
somewhat less limited.

The really professional ones can mix you custom colors or load colors
that can't be represented in any sane color space known so far like
shades of gold color.

Still if your print shop insists on CMYK PDFs there is no reason to
deny them that output so long as they give you the profile and Cairo
gets the feature implemeted (or somebody hacks it as addon to inkscape
if they must).

Thanks

Michal

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