On 01.06.2009 06:33, ricardo lafuente wrote:

probably not the answer you were looking for, but:

No, definitely not. It's the first time I want to get s.th. printed on a color printer. I try to find a workflow; see how s.b. else handles it. The questions in my e-mail were meant to give an impression of what I presently think of (with doubts + uncertainty). Thanks for the reply.

i do quite a few works for print using Inkscape and friends. Everytime i have to print something that needs to have precise colors, i do a quick swatch sheet.

It's not only the blue gradient fill, also orange looks a bit bright etc.

I downloaded the 'altona_measure_1v1a.pdf' from www.eci.org, imported it into Inkscape, exported it as PNG (1) and made a TIF with embedded color profile (2) as well as a PDF/X-3 (3) out of it. I am going to get (1) - (3) printed to compare. An empiric - to my taste somewhat astrologic - approach that doesn't make me too happy.

Is there any experience with color profile transformation? Do I understand things properly at all:

...

Hi,

I started using Inkscape 6 weeks ago. I went to a print shop to get a color drawing - exported as PNG - printed. On this print, a blue gradient fill turned into a blue to dirty-green fill.

Do you have to transform color space afore?

How do you usually do this?

Convert PNG to TIF, transform RGB to CMYK with embedded profile?

Make a PDF/X-3 via Scribus?

    If via SVG import, how do you handle tranparency?

What standard color profile do you use, if you don't know exactly on which machine you are going to print?

Or was this color shift just caused by a misconfiguration of Photoshop in the print shop?

Thanks in advance for your help.

El Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:11:28 +0200 "H.Lekin" <h.lekin@...961...> escribió:

On 01.06.2009 21:52, minombresbond wrote:

...

previously I transform transparency to solid colors in inkscape

How do you transform transparency? Manually? I Can't find a function doing this for me.

yes, manually, with f7 color tool

I dont know if exist any function for 'automate' this, in inkscape, or in any other vector software

if a complex art, then export to png, and remove alpha channel in gimp if necessary

remove transparency it is a common recommendation from printing bureau

...

you need icc profile (monitor RGB profile and printer CMYK profile) to preview in inkscape *approximately* (but very close)[1],

Can you set the Device Profile in Preferences > Color management > Proofing? I can't even set the Display Profile there, just Retrieve profile from display.

place the icc profiles in /usr/share/color/icc ( gnu/linux os)

there is a icc package called 'icc-profile' in many distros

here inkscape Color Management tutorial:

http://en.flossmanuals.net/Inkscape/ColorManagement

always need *two* icc color profiles, that work like this:

+------------------+ | RGB screen color | RGB values, +------------------+ colors which can be viewed on screen | | RGB profile (your monitor icc profile) | V +--------------+ | 'REAL' color | platonic color world +--------------+ | | CMYK profile (like 'euroscale coated') | | +----------------+ | offset printer | CMYK values, +----------------+ colors which can be viewed on paper

saludos!

El Wed, 3 Jun 2009 21:34:55 +0200 JimmyVolatile <spam@...2597...> escribió:

Hi. I still find this kinda confusing.

I only speak in google-translator-english :(

Is there a tutorial that step-by-step states:

1. Where and how to download some frequently used profiles, like

Adobe's?

icc-profiles package http://packages.debian.org/lenny/icc-profiles -- ECI (European Color Initiative) http://www.eci.org/doku.php?id=es:downloads -- Eurostandard ICC profiles http://www.systembrunner.ch/db-homepage/templates/document.xml?id=381263 -- ICC Profile Registry http://www.color.org/registry/index.xalter -- Adobe ICC profiles windows http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/iccprofiles/iccprofiles_win.html osx http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/iccprofiles/iccprofiles_mac.html

2. Where to put the .icc-files on the various platforms

(Mac/Linux/Windows) in order to make Inkscape use them.

linux: /usr/share/color/icc $home/.color/icc

osx, win? this link can be very useful http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/321/321382.html#obtain

3. If installing LittleCMS or similar is needed to make this work?

LittleCMS is a library that handles color profiles, but not include profiles, as far I know, inkscape use LittleCMS library for managing color profiles

I tried having a look at Inkscape.org, Flossmanuals, Wikipedia but to no avail. Searching for icc on Inkscape.org only gives me a hint about manually adding an XML element to each file when use of ICC profiles i s desired. http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Adding_color-profile_element . I also can not get the dropdowns in the *Preferences --> Color Management *dialog to work even when I follow minombresbond's advice.

something like (inkscape v0.46) File >> Preferences >> Color Management or shift + Ctrl + P

---

maybe useful:

scribus color management tutorial http://docs.scribus.net/index.php?lang=en&page=cms

ICC (nternational Color Consortium) FAQs http://www.color.org/faqs.xalter

Hi and thanks for your help so far! On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 12:08 AM, H.Lekin <h.lekin@...961...> wrote:

On 03.06.2009 21:34, JimmyVolatile wrote:

...

Hi. I still find this kinda confusing.

Hi too!

I find it even worse. Today, I went to make a few test prints: TIF and PDF/X-3 with different profiles; not too convincing, no. Also, monitor calibration is still problematic. Norman Koren's / LProf charts lead to a very dark screen; two other tests do not comply with this. Buying a Spyder is too much for what I intend to do...

...

Is there a tutorial that step-by-step states:

1. Where and how to download some frequently used profiles, like Adobe's?

www.adobe.com/downloads/ -> Adobe ICC Color Profiles By the way, Adobe Color Management Module makes no sense.

I also downloaded ISO Profiles from ECI (European Color Inintiative), www.eci.org

...

2. Where to put the .icc-files on the various platforms

(Mac/Linux/Windows) in order to make Inkscape use them.

See 'Profile Information.pdf' included in Adobe profiles.

I've done suggested but I still can not make the profiles work for Inkscape under Windows. The profiles work nicely for Scribus and I can install and uninstall profiles without hassle by right-clicking the profile files and selecting 'Install Profile'. The installed profiles end up in: C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color and is available for use in Scribus. Not so with Inkscape.

...

3. If installing LittleCMS or similar is needed to make this work?

The library is part of Inkscape.

Ok. Good thing. Although, it seems to be planned for version 0.53, according to the roadmap ( http://www.inkscape.org/roadmap.php ). I can not find anything saying otherwise, partially because there's something wrong with the inkscape wiki.

...

I tried having a look at Inkscape.org, Flossmanuals, Wikipedia but to no avail. Searching for icc on Inkscape.org only gives me a hint about manually adding an XML element to each file when use of ICC profiles i s desired. http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Adding_color-profile_element . I also can not get the dropdowns in the *Preferences --> Color Management *dialog to work

Same to me. I added the URI to Inkscape's preferences file, group id="softproof". Don't know yet whether this does anything at all.

Tried the same on my system: Providing URIs to the ICC profile folder or URIs to individual .icc files does nothing. I confirmed that the pref file is actually read by changing the "Out of gamut" color to green. ( File found in: C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Application Data\Inkscape\preferences.xml )

...

even when I follow minombresbond's advice. Sorry if this is obvious to you all but I'm having a bit of a struggle. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks :), Jimmy Volatile.

Good luck, beware of mad Inkscape disease, HL

Does any of this work better on Linux? Is the color management UI simply not working at all on Windows? I promise I'll write a good tutorial or improve the color management page on flossmanuals if I find good answers to all these questions :) :)

---

OpenSolaris 2009.06 is a cutting edge operating system for enterprises looking to deploy the next generation of Solaris that includes the latest innovations from Sun and the OpenSource community. Download a copy and enjoy capabilities such as Networking, Storage and Virtualization. Go to: http://p.sf.net/sfu/opensolaris-get _______________________________________________ Inkscape-user mailing list Inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-user

With regs, Jimmy Volatile

Hi, all.

Partial success on Linux! (Linux Mint - Based on Ubuntu)

I've put the ICC-profiles into the $/home/USER/.color/icc/ directory (I had to create it) as kindly suggested by the tool-tip of the ICC-profiles-field in Scribus: Preferences --> General Settings. Maybe I can do the same thing on Windows. After restarting Inkscape, the color profile dropdowns now work. A small tool-tip describing the preferred folder path on either of the dropdowns (like in Scribus) would have shortened my research significantly, to put it mildly...

I'll go on trying out the color profiles settings now and send of a number of test files (PDF?) to the printing house to check out the end results. Once done with that I'll update the relevant chapters on flossmanuals once I've completed the profile research and verified that the profiles indeed do work.

@H.Lekin: Regarding the filter effects, there's a 50+ filters package created that covers many of the default effects like drop-shadow, tint, hue, emboss etc. I'll try digging out the URL somewhere.

With regs,

Jimmy Volatile

On Fri, Jun 5, 2009 at 12:30 PM, H.Lekin <h.lekin@...961...> wrote:

On 04.06.2009 20:18, JimmyVolatile wrote:

...

I've done suggested but I still can not make the profiles work for Inkscape under Windows. The profiles work nicely for Scribus and I can install and uninstall profiles without hassle by right-clicking the profile files and selecting 'Install Profile'. The installed profiles end up in: C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color and is available for use in Scribus. Not so with Inkscape.

I can confirm this.

...

> 3. If installing LittleCMS or similar is needed to make this work?

The library is part of Inkscape.

Ok. Good thing. Although, it seems to be planned for version 0.53, according to the roadmap ( http://www.inkscape.org/roadmap.php ). I can not find anything saying otherwise, partially because there's something wrong with the inkscape wiki.

Little CMS is (just) a library for color management. The question is whether and how it is used by Inkscape.

...

Does any of this work better on Linux? Is the color management UI simply not working at all on Windows?

I booted a SUSE Linux, installed the Inkscape packages, and when I ran it for the first time I could choose monitor and printer profiles via the drop-down lists. Then I copied a birthday card I made on Windows to the SUSE laptop, opened this file, and the drop-down lists were as unusable as on Windows. Furthermore, the drop-down lists continue to be unusable...

Apart from unexpectedly strange-looking gradient fills, fonts turned out to be another problem in an SVG-Scribus-PDF/X-3 work flow. Due to the PDF 1.3 specification, you can't use transparency. In this context, the standard transparency in gradient fills is of particular usefulness. If Scribus' pre-press check states the use of transparency in polyline 15, how do you locate it in Inkscape?

I spent a considerable amount of time on printing issues as well as on guessing functionality, e.g. of Filter Effects, whereby it is most annoying that you have to do this as if you were the first one ever.

Is there an experienced user willing to coordinate and one of the developers willing to participate to write a paper, e.g. on printing?

HL

---

OpenSolaris 2009.06 is a cutting edge operating system for enterprises looking to deploy the next generation of Solaris that includes the latest innovations from Sun and the OpenSource community. Download a copy and enjoy capabilities such as Networking, Storage and Virtualization. Go to: http://p.sf.net/sfu/opensolaris-get _______________________________________________ Inkscape-user mailing list Inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-user

On 05.06.2009 18:12, bulia byak wrote:

You are involved in the Inkscape project? Nice!

I'm currently out of the loop on this, but I'm glad to see a discussion going. It would be great if someone could summarize it by creating a "color print" page on our wiki (wiki.inkscape.org) listing what works, what doesn't, etc.

It would be greater if the developer(s) could first write a little on what there is supposed to work how. Details on the preference's color management GUI would be of particular interest.

This afternoon, I went to get a birthday card printed. An orange to red gradient fill turned into orange to brown. It was thus obvious, that the man in the shop picking up the print commented it with big smile and a "You will not like it". We already had discussions on color (management) issues there. It's almost impossible to find the cause(s): Inkscape, Scribus, the destination color profile, or the shop's work flow... At least my monitor adjustments are out of further consideration now as the shop's display of the PDF/X-3 was very close to mine.

Printing of Inksape SVGs is essential! I tried lots of approaches (PDF/X-3, TIF, via Scribus, via Gimp with Separate+ as well as LCMS command-line utility, a little ImageMagick, various standard color profiles to none at all), read mails twice and thrice for s.th. I may have missed out. Still very unsatisfactory. No idea how things are supposed to work (together); nothing worth writing to the wiki.

Apart from color issues fonts are quite problematic too. I couldn't import such SVGs into Scribus properly. I had to convert fonts into paths, which is ridiculous for PDF as destination format.

What can you actually expect from Inkscape?

No need to search, it's right in the Filters menu in 0.47. Please consider switching to it if you haven't already, we need more testing before the release.

Including documentation or 36+ for more guesswork?

On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 3:50 AM, H.Lekin<h.lekin@...961...> wrote:

It would be greater if the developer(s) could first write a little on what there is supposed to work how. Details on the preference's color management GUI would be of particular interest.

Absolutely. I have asked Jon to document the profiles functionality that he had added. I guess it is not yet properly described mostly because it is unfinished, but then, it is exposed to the users, and users will have questions.

...

No need to search, it's right in the Filters menu in 0.47. Please consider switching to it if you haven't already, we need more testing before the release.

Including documentation or 36+ for more guesswork?

General documentation for 0.47 is here:

http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ReleaseNotes047

It does not describe all the new preset filters, but then, there are more than 100 of them, and they have helpful names, submenu categorization, and tooltips (watch statusbar when browsing the menus).

El Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:38:10 +0200 JimmyVolatile <spam@...2597...> escribió:

Hi, all.

Partial success on Linux! (Linux Mint - Based on Ubuntu)

I've put the ICC-profiles into the $/home/USER/.color/icc/ directory (I had to create it) as kindly suggested by the tool-tip of the ICC-profiles-field in Scribus: Preferences --> General Settings. Maybe I can do the same thing on Windows. After restarting Inkscape, the color profile dropdowns now work. A small tool-tip describing the preferred folder path on either of the dropdowns (like in Scribus) would have shortened my research significantly, to put it mildly...

I'll go on trying out the color profiles settings now and send of a number of test files (PDF?) to the printing house to check out the end results. Once done with that I'll update the relevant chapters on flossmanuals once I've completed the profile research and verified that the profiles indeed do work.

I think inkscape can't embed the CMYK profiles on svg or pdf files

the right CMYK profile that you need (for acurate previews) is the same color profile will be used in the printing of the print job, you should send to printing house only a simple RGB file, in theory, that is the right (and reasonable) way, the 'secret' is to know which color profile will be used in the printing, and using the same for inkscape previews with 'simulate output on screen'

I said 'in theory' becose I never sent a RGBA file to printing, and I never would.. however, in theory it should be possible

On Jun 18, 2009, at 2:51 PM, JimmyVolatile wrote:

Actually, the print house I use most of the time recommends only sending RGB-files as the final CMYK conversion takes place *inside* the printer and as long as the operators manually tell the printer what RGB color profile were used to create the file, it should turn out fine. The profile doesn't need to be embedded as such as long as there are no embedded images with different profiles in one file.

Well... that only really works for photos/images and only if you're not doing any tricky work.

Text and other items often need control for black only, etc.

On 18.06.2009 23:51, JimmyVolatile wrote:

Actually, the print house I use most of the time recommends only sending RGB-files as the final CMYK conversion takes place *inside* the printer and as long as the operators manually tell the printer what RGB color profile were used to create the file, it should turn out fine. The profile doesn't need to be embedded as such as long as there are no embedded images with different profiles in one file.

You can send / hand over an RGB file, no doubt. But I want to know in advance what the print is going to look like. First, the printer's color space is smaller then sRGB; this is where gamut and rendering intend come into play. Second, the colors will slightly vary with the CMYK profile the print shop uses, e.g., Adobe's EuroscaleCoated red is 'more' red than ECI's ISOcoated.

Setting up profiles and proofing on Linux Mint with the latest Inkscape pre-release, also worked nicely. Out of gamut colors are marked and all.

Is this planned to work on Window's with the 0.47 release too? Nothing about it in the release notes...

My only issue now is that, like I said, my print house would like me to design and proof with Adobe RGB (1998) but only CMYK profiles appear in the "Device profile:" dropdown. Do anyone have any ideas on solving this? Or could setting the display profile to Adobe RGB help here somehow?

Dubious, dubious... My print shop is a bit like this one, they hope convincingly but do not know much.

There is a considerable lack of documentation on this theme. I found some very good lyrical introductions on color-managed printing, all focusing on Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator etc; no in-depth IT view focusing on Gimp or Scribus so far.

Also, the tools I can use to create print files are poorly documented. If things work fine, it's OK; if not, you are lost. I can just assume that my print files are OK (can't say much about the PDF/Xs dropping out of Scribus; TIFFs seem to be the better choice) and I have to guess how to cope with the print shop's work flow, which they often do not understand themselves (s.a.).

I still can't / don't know how to print Inkscape output properly. This makes the whole application a little useless. Can we discuss this here?

H.L