Since I can remember, I’ve always loved and appreciated the process of design and creation. Being born and raised in Rome, Italy until I was 30, I’ve been surrounded most of my life by monuments, paintings, sculptures, buildings and typography. What I clearly remember is how I used to look at roman inscriptions on churches and monuments and appreciated the perfection of sizing, spacing, leading and most of all, the physical carving. Read More…

I guess I am a color geek, although I prefer color freak. What better a place for a color freak to browse and compose than in a forum dedicated to color management. Sure there are lots of forums but because ColorGeek2 is moderated by The Dans, Dan Gillespie and Dan Reid, two true geeks. I had to join and participate.

The ColorGeek2 Forum will no doubt be populated by us consultants who really know their stuff. This is a good thing, because no one consultant can know and or have experience in all areas. In my first glance I learned of an issue in EFI ColorProof XF and it’s connectivity with a HP Z-Series Printer. I myself posed a question about the latest from SWOP.org

If your looking for answers give the forum a try and as it matures I am sure you will find the answers to many color mysteries.

Design is rarely just for design sake. There is always a purpose and most of the time design is used for many medium - web, print, signage, etc. There are reasons to design in RGB and reasons to design in CMYK. We design in RGB (Adobe RGB) for the most flexibility in color conversion. From Adobe RGB we can convert to sRGB for the web, GRACoL CMYK, SWOP CMYK, or any other device dependent CMYK. In an RGB workflow we can produce Adobe RGB PDFX3 files for a digital printer who prefers to do the final conversion via RIP to device dependent CMYK. Plus going from an RGB  to CMYK allows for the best conversion since most of the time color is compressed to fit perceptually into CMYK (there are always exceptions). This gives the best color conversion.

Of course sometimes we have to design in CMYK or at least deliver CMYK. It’s crucial to remember that CMYK is not generic. With the recent development of better generic CMYK from the IDEAlliance, we have implemented newer profiles for generic CMYK for both SWOP and GRACoL. We use these profiles only if our commercial printer will accept them. Printers we work with like Rush Press and Neynesch here in San Diego work with these new profiles. Download them here. We also sometimes design and convert RGB to device specific CMYK like when we use Modern Postcard to print a postcard piece or print to an HP Indigo Press.

With different working space profiles for RGB and CMYK it is necessary to have different color settings for Adobe CS applications. I have set up a variety of .csf files known as Color Setup Files to be used whenever we start and work on a project intended for a particular technology. Download our .csf settings here.

encompus GRACoL 2006 - This .csf is used when we our commercial printer supports the new GRACoL CMYK profile. We convert all RGB to the new GRACoL profile and include the IDEAlliance ISO 12547 Control Strip in our proofs. Typically this workflow is early binding, meaning we convert images in Photoshop before placing into page layout and all vector elements are built in Illustrator using the GRACoL profile as the working space and we convert Pantone Colors to process by referencing a conversion tool called i1 Share. We use this .csf for most sheetfed jobs. We also use this if we want an all Adobe RGB workflow.

encompus Modern Postcard - This .csf is used because Modern Postcard supplies the general public with a device dependent CMYK press profile instead of SWOP or GRACoL. Typically this workflow is early binding, meaning we convert images in Photoshop before placing into page layout and all vector elements are built using the Modern Postcard profile as the working space and we convert Pantone Colors to process by referencing a conversion tool called i1 Share.

encompus Safe CMYK - This setup is used when we have no idea where our job will be printed. The RGB working space is Adobe RGB and the CMYK working space is set to US Web Coated SWOP v2. All other profiles are set to convert to working space via Relative Colorimetric. This workflow is typically early binding and PDFX1a

encompus SWOP 2006 - This setup is used when we print magazine ads on glossy publication stock and when the separator supports the new SWOP 2006 v3 profile. We make sure all RGB is converted to this profile and typically build PDFX1a PDF’s.

encompus Web Development - This setup is used when we need to prepare images and graphics for web development. All incomming RGB is converted to sRGB regardless of embedd profile. This enables us to open Adobe RGB files and automatically convert them to sRGB.

As my first blog post I thought it fitting to comment on a recent AIGA symposium I attended with our crew from encompus, COLORWORKS, a day of color theory, branding, space, and forecast. One of my business partners Marc Aguilera, our Color Management Director, was speaking along with Leatrice Eiseman from Pantone and Paul Wharton of Larsen, a communications design agency. Read More…