2009/12/20 Krzysztof Kosiński <tweenk.pl@...400...>:
2009/12/19 Chris Mohler <cr33dog@...400...>:
Illustrator (these days) handles this in a sane way IMO. There is a switch for the Document Color Mode - RGB or CMYK.
Disclaimer: I don't know much about DTP, and I never worked in a print shop, but I'd like to learn more. Is there any benefit to having a CMYK document without an ICC profile?
Yes - you can submit jobs for printing :) Many companies require CMYK files - see one example - it's item #1: http://home.sharpdots.com/index.cfm?HDID=GP&PAGE_ID=15
Here's my line of thought: if you have a CMYK document, and no ICC profile for the monitor, you have no guarantee that the built-in CMYK to RGB conversion that is required to display the document on the screen is correct.
Even a generic CMYK profile will eliminate many of the out-of-gamut colors present in RGB.
I recently spent 3+ hours arguing with my father that you can't magically get better results by changing the colorspace, unless your equipment or programs are broken (e.g. you have no ICC profiles, and you know that black won't print correctly unless it's C100 M100 Y100 K100). Right now I think working in CMYK without color management is voodoo, but as mentioned before I am just a random opinionated non-expert.
Yes, to be effective, both the screen and the doc should be managed. OTOH, assigning a default sRGB to the screen and default like SWOP for the doc should be enough for most cases (of sending a file to a print co, that is).
Is CMYK rendered exactly the same by every printer? Are there such things as ICC profiles for printers? Why don't the print companies use those profiles with the customers' color-managed RGB documents?
No, yes, and in theory that would work. In practice, the customer would likely use colors that are way out of gamut, so forcing CMYK mode causes what is on the customer's screen to more accurately reflect the final output. Basically, it lessens disputes. At least that's my theory. At any rate, I've yet to find any large print company that does not specify CMYK.
Chris