[softwarelist] Re: colour corrections

In a previous message, Matthew Hambley <matthew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> In message <C1948FA0.1CA03%akalat@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>           Mike Williams <akalat@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > As an aside to my previous reply, I recently read that a major magazine
> > publisher has now adopted an RGB workflow so maybe RISC OS is just ahead
> > of the game.
> 
> That sounds like lazynes on said magazines side. [snip] Using RGB for
> something which is going to end up printed is likely to lead to problems.

Actually, it's becoming more and more common in publishing to follow an
RGB-only workflow right up to the RIP. There are various reasons for this, but
one of the major ones is that most photographs are now primarily available as
digital JPEG files - which are all RGB. Thus, doing the page layout in RGB
means that all artwork can be used without alteration (useful for comping
purposes apart from anything else). The CMYK conversion is done only at the
final step, in the RIP, which can be configured correctly and is more powerful
than most other methods.

There's a common misconception that working in CMYK on screen avoids problems
with colour balance and matching, but that's very far from the truth. Even
CMYK files can produce radically different appearances depending on the
saturation and colour balance used in the printing machinery, and the
individual inks themselves vary, too. There a lot of imponderables, which is
why leaving any conversion to the final RIP often gives the best results.

John
(Speaking from my experience in academic journal and educational book
publishing.)
-- 
John Pettigrew
http://john.pettigrew.org.uk/
http://john.pettigrew.org.uk/blog/

Other related posts: