Problem with color conversions, profiles and print

Question

Hey, I have some issues that I can't handle myself anymore

Issues:

#Converting Cmyk to RGB Al File and embedded PNGs with transparency (illustrations).

#Export of RGB PDF that will print well on home printers

#RGB Al files with embedded PNGs with different profiles

I am preparing PDFs (ebooks) in Illustrator that are supposed to print well on home printers.

So far they have all been prepared in CMYK with a "Generic CMYK" profile similar to most of the illustrations embedded inside (PDF with transparency). I can see that other profiles, like P3, got tangled up there, because it's easy to missclick when exporting illustrations from Procreate.

The problem arose when I bought a new printer - Epson L8180 with ICM/ICC profile calibrated for a specific paper.

I learned that under home printers it should be PDF in RGB. And now trying to convert these Al files I can't figure it out.

Already a couple of times I hought I had this figured out, and it turns out that in printing come out errors like in the picture below.

Whether the toadstool comes out almost black or simply too dark differs in only one thing: whether I flatten the transparencies before starting the export.

Everything else is the same.

Does anyone perhaps have an idea what is the cause? My flow of dealing with Al file in CMYK to export and print PDF in RGB:

1. In the color setting in Al I have set:

• RGB workspace: Adobe RGB

• CMYK workspace: Generic CMYK (because I usually had illustrations and PDFs prepared with such a rofile)

• Color management policies: Convert to workspace for RGB and CMYK

• Conversion options: Adobe/Perceptual

2. I also assign a profile to the document: Adobe RGB

3. I open the Al file in CMYK - if it calls out that it has a different space, e.g. Fogra - I click to convert to workspace, while I also tried clicking "leave document profile/ignore workspace and the problems later were the same guess) -

4. I click File>Document Color Mode and change it to RGB. After that the PC thinks for a while

5. I select all obiecrs inside and click Edit>Edit colors> Convert to RGB

After that I do a PDF save - starting from "Best Quality" settings, I change to the oldest PDF format, transparency flattening I give to high,

Output: Adobre RGB - no warnings about other profiles in the file show up, so it looks ok.

I tested with and without embedding the profile, and in the end I can print such an almost black toadstool as in the picture at the bottom. This less black one (still a little too dark relative to the image on the monitor) was created when I did the transparency flattening manually before exporting.

l'm betting it's a mistake, because I guess the two variants shouldn't give such different print.

Is there any hope of fixing this, or would I have to do everything from scratch?

The printer on this ICC profile prints other PDF or JPG correctly. Help

michal_PL · Accepted Answer

Hey @Ton Frederiks

New insight - I printed the CMYK verion of PDF from Acrobat and it went a lot better (still a bit to dark in comparison with TIFF, but a lot better then these almost-dark toadstools).
Does it add any useful insight to my question of how to prepare PDF that will print well on this printer among others?

After all these complications, I'm almost afraid to say it, but I think I've finally reached a solution.

Throughout this process, parts that shouldn't have moved were moving, causing test changes to produce completely scattered results.

What was the biggest problem?
The Preview app on Mac doesn't handle ICC profile printing correctly.
Most of my tests were conducted using this application.
I'm not sure if this is just my issue or a general problem.

The issue seems to be that prints from Preview may use the "Absolute Colorimetric" rendering intent. When comparing Illustrator's soft proofing with different settings to the printout, the effect matched this conversion method, which gave terrible results here.

When printing from Firefox or even the free Acrobat, this problem doesn't occur.
Interestingly, my old files in Generic CMYK print quite well from Firefox, so that wasn't the issue.

There was an example where a TIFF without an embedded profile printed well using our profile - I don't have the energy to test whether this was printed from Preview or not, but it's possible that Preview prints single images correctly with a profile, while composite files (PDFs) don't. This might be related to the suspected "absolute colorimetric" rendering intent that seems to be incorrectly applied and probably buggy.

In any case, Firefox prints PDFs converted to sRGB well, both with and without an embedded color profile.
The Generic CMYK profile is weak, and its use throughout the process slightly distorts print colors, but it wasn't the cause of such severe problems (almost black toadstools).

Conclusions:
1. For printing with profiles, choose an application other than Preview, and generally start any troubleshooting by printing from 2-3 different applications. For example, Acrobat, browser, another editor. In my case, this would have probably saved about 150 test prints and around 10 sleepless nights combined XD

2. Color management: Avoid conversions throughout the process. Try to work with the same profiles and only convert to the target at the end if necessary. It's best to perform conversions either at the very beginning or end, if at all. This makes it easier to figure out where something might have gone wrong. If the output file needs to be universal, it's good to have all objects prepared with the same profile.

Remaining problem

Small font printing is still unsatisfactory (fonts are twice as thick as on Canon), but this is most likely due to the combination of water-based ink and uncoated paper.

Thank you @Ton Frederiks for your help. It was your sugestion to try printing from Acrobat.

Ton Frederiks · Answer

Looks like a lot of conversions. Do you need to flatten? Are the images of the toad stools linked or embedded? Are they RGB, sRGB or Adobe RGB?

It is hard to follow/predict what will happen at each point in your workflow with your colors.

I would setup a new sRGB document in Illustrator.

Place the images without conversion (Preserve Embedded Profiles).

Use grayscale black for text and keep the text on the top layer (if for some reason flattening needs to happen, it won't affect the text).

Don't flatten transparency.

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