Richard & All, I think at the end of the day the photographer must make as much effort as possible to ensure their pictures are printed as well as possible. Although it could be the printers fault, the photographer stands to lose more and will not get more work off the back of the job if it does not look very good. I think the digital photographer must take time to a) find a few good printing companies (litho & digital) that do understand colour management and do tests with them to get to know the potential pitfalls and b) to be prepared to do your own RGB to CMYK conversions when a job requires working with a printers that you do not belive understand CM.
At then end of the day there is no point saying 'well they should understand CM' if they don't. I use Adobe RGB or SRGB depending on how the digital file starts out and convert to Euroscale Coated CMYK. I still tweak the colours though in CMYK and don't just convert and hope. Although I would rather embed RGB files and hope that they will somehow look the same once printed, I would rather it be my fault the finished result looks strange than someone elses. That way I can tweak my set-up and get better each time. I use a printing company called Waterside who are great. Although I send them CMYK images, I have taken to sending them pre-conversion RGB proofs off the 7600 as they can match them so well. They will happily tweak the ink flows on the press to get the result as close as possible. Nathan Gaydhani - photography and digital imaging -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Kenward Sent: 03 February 2004 19:39 Dear Nathan Good to hear comments from the other side of the screen so to speak, but how is the poor old photographer to supply the correct file? If when he asks what CMYK file conversion suits them best, or can I have a profile of your press/paper or even proofer, only to be met at best with.... Oh just convert it in Photoshop!! On being pressed many do not even seem aware that there ARE choices, and some gleefully respond Swop as if they have really shown they know they are up to speed on this one! Now as you of course know this is not generally the best conversion for use in the UK. Here we tend to align ourselves with the European standards, and use positive film for plate making and less dot gain, whereas the US use neg. film and have more dot gain, so the Photoshop Euroscale options are generally a better bet. It also does not take account of the possibility, quite likely that the job will be going CtP, and may even be using a finer line screen than 150. The 'classic' response of all time to my question of how would you like the files converted was.... send them by email! Oh well it takes all sorts. Cheers Richard =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
