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sarumbear
sarumbear
Participating Frequently
January 18, 2021
Question

What colour space the CMYK values are given for?

  • January 18, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 658 views

As it is said on varioues times on this forum, CMYK values are meaningless without the colour space attached to them. In which case my question will be to what colour space COLOR website is giving the CMYK values?

 

Thanks

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    3 replies

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Legend
    January 24, 2021

    "The CMYK Values are not from any standard color space." So you mean they are a useless and deceptive waste of time? Why would Adobe, one of the most active and experienced practitioners of color management, do such a thing? 

    sarumbear
    sarumbearAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    January 26, 2021

    Why indeed? How a a company like Adobe displays a colour value, allows me to adjust it, monitoring on a screen that they have no idea if it is sRGB or AdobeRGB.

     

    You are titled "The Most Valueable Participant", maybe you can teach me how that is possible? Why is that bright green I have on my Monitor looks different on everyone elses and on print?

     

    A colour value without a colour space is meaningless. If you don't know that, or think Adobe doesn't either, you have a steep peak to climb!

    Bob_Hallam
    Bob_Hallam
    Legend
    January 20, 2021

    The CMYK Values are not from any standard color space.  If you need CMYK for any specific CMYK color space, just impot the Lab values into Photoshop and select the CMYK profile in your color settings.  

    ICC programmer and developer, Photographer, artist and color management expert, Print standards and process expert.
    sarumbear
    sarumbearAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    January 20, 2021

    The issue is, the colours are displayed on the screen. Am I seeing them on a sRGB display, or AdobeRGB one, what are the CMYK values are given for coated, uncoated, metalic...how would I know? CMYK values without the colour profile is as meaningless as random numbers!

     

    To test this I created a color palette, brought in one of the colours to Ilustrator and Photoshop. The CC colour spaces are synced to "Europe / Internet 2". You can see that both the CMYK vales and the Pantone swatches are considerably off between the COLOR webapp and the CC apps.

     

    ApplicationModeWebEGBCMYKPantone
    Adobe Color 304b614875975123062P 108-15 C
    PhotoshopRGB304b61487597    P 174-15 C
     CMYK    84604032P 174-15 C
    IllustratorRGB304b61487597     
     CMYK    84604032 

     

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