Preparing files for print

Report · Mar 19, 2009

Hi everyone,

I was given a .icc profile from my printer and was told to convert to this profile after I'd finished my editing in RGB mode.

I was also given the following information:

General Specs for newsprint:
Colour should be CMYK. When converting RGB to CMYK, use the following Photoshop settings:
Ink Colour: Newsprint
Dot Gain: 30%
Separation Type: GCR
Black generation: Light
Total Ink Limit: 260%
UCA: 10%

I don't understand the above settings as I thought that all that information was captured in the .icc profile that I was supplied. This is my first experience in a colour managed workflow so I may be getting a bit confused. If the above settings are not in the .icc profile then where do I set them in Photoshop?

Would really appreciate any advice.

Report · Mar 28, 2009

InDesign CS2 and CS3 don't recognize Grayscale
profiles. This was already mentioned in my doc.
It seems to be still the same for CS4.
Therefore Grayscale is labeled as Device Gray,
which means, it's unspecified. If the conversion
was done with an appropriate DotGain or an
appropriate profile like Black Ink ISOCoated, then
it's OK. It's not corrrect if Gamma=2.2 was chosen
because this is wrong for coated media.
[Black Ink ISOCoated is derived as a custom grayscale
profile by loading ISOCoated.]
Grayscale can be avoided by copying the gray image
into the K-channel of a CMYK file with empty plates
CMY. This is definitely a CMYK image.

I don't know what this means:
Black CMYK "ICC"
If it's based on an ICC profile, then the profile should
be mentioned. A new version of 'Black Ink ...' as above ?

Indexed Color means that a graphic needs only 8 bits
per pixel or one channel. It can happen that CMYK = 000K
is converted to Indexed.
This is indeed confusing. Export to PDF can be prevented
from applying this conversion:

Search your folder for PDF joboptions:
C:\Adobe CS2\Adobe Acrobat 7.0\Distillr\Settings

Choose your actual file:
filename.joboptions

And replace here
/ConvertImagesToIndexed true
'true' by 'false'

Spot inks are not indicated by Indexed but like this:
Separation Color Space Pantone 100C

In any case of doubt I'm doing some tests with small
files which contain typical ingredients.

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

Report · Feb 28, 2025

I'm more than a few years late but here you go....When file is in RGB, go to Edit-Convert To Profile, and under the CMYK bullet, choose Custom CMYK and fill out as per right hand side. Give these settings a name so you can use them again later since they will appear as a profile in your CMYK Profile list. See screenshot.

Report · Mar 01, 2025

JKA@4153 Its been an age, but a. replyu popped up and I wanted to mention that creating this kind of 'faux CMYK profile' in Photoshop is not a good idea at all, you ideally need to work with a vendor who uses proper ICC CMYK profiles to characterise the printing process. The "custom CMYK" process you'd have to use is a holdover from Photoshop v4 back in the late 1990's as far as I know.

Long Long ago digitaldog (Andrew Rodney) wrote:

"So this Custom CMYK mode - - -

- - don't use it, its buggy, the ink models are ancient and the SWOP definitions there have no basis in reality on the U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 profile which is based on TR001 SWOP.

This is usually the lame recommendations of shops that don't have a clue about using modern ICC color management to define a print process. Beware. You need an ICC profile that defines either the press or better, contract proofing device used for the job."

I hope this helps

neil barstow colourmanagement - adobe forum volunteer,

colourmanagement consultant & co-author of 'getting colour right'

See my free articles on colourmanagement online

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