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Question

How can I export an SVG with both RGB and CMYK colors?

Forum|Forum|11 years ago
April 14, 2014
2 replies
34870 views

I'm trying to make a workflow for Illustrator (CMYK) to Web (SVG with CMYK colors and RGB fallbacks) to Print (CMYK PDF) using SVG. However, it looks like Illustrator only exports RGB colors in SVG files. Illustrator would only be responsible for the saving as SVG, then I'd use other tools to do the rest.

Is there a way to get Illustrator to export device-cmyk() or icc-color() values in addition to RGB colors in an SVG file? Is there a way to export spot color names as well?

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

Mylenium

Legend

Alternate color models will be supported in SVG 2, but since it is an unfinished draft at the moment nobody really uses it and so does AI. You want something that doesn't exist, though I'm sure some preliminary implementations exist e.g. in some development branch of Inkscape. Eitehr way, at this point it's totally pointless to waste a second thought on this. Unless it becomes an official standard, Adobe won't support it in their apps. For now you can only create your own implementation with custom user data sections and referenced color profiles. Beyond that you have things backwards - nobody and really nobody on teh web cares for CMYK. Even if the spec were already final, anyone with brains would still convert the colors on the local calibrated system to a) ensure correct color rendering and b) keep file sizes as small as possible. Even if browsers may support it, they wil lonly use generic profiles to render CMYK or Lab. Yor idea is seriously flawed therefore. What you want would be like having a custom high-gammut profile in AI and then using a standard FOGRA profile for printing - the colros will simply be wrong.

Mylenium

J

jon__wuAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Mylenium,

Thanks for the feedback. You're right that unmanaged device colors, device-cmyk() doesn't appear until SVG2 (http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG2/color.html#device). Sorry if that was misleading. My other example however, icc-color(), is part of SVG 1.1 but the SVG 1.2 docs are a litte more detailed (http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGColor12/#icc-colors). I agree, that Adobe wouldn't necessarily support a draft specification, but there exist some ways to do this within SVG 1.1. Here's a quote about icc-colors from that last link:

As with SVG Full 1.1, SVG Color content may specify color using an ICC profile (see [ICC42]); an sRGB fallback must still be provided.

As for the intent, let me clairfy. I'd want to use an RGB fallback for display on the web since RGB is used by monitors of course. However, I will eventually convert the resulting SVG to a PDF for print and in that case I'll need the CMYK values since it's impossible convert from CMYK to RGB and back to CMYK. The reason I can't export straight to PDF in the first place is that I'll allow users to manipulate the SVG in their browser before printing.

Let's sssume I have all the other details worked out such as how to force the browser to ignore the icc-color so it always uses the fallback for consistency; I still need to figure out how to maintain the CMYK colors or get a mapping of RGB to CMYK colors for all colors in the document. I'm thinking that creating a mapping for each document might be the solution here, but I'm still brainstorming the best way to do that as well.

Any other ideas?

Thank you

D

dadanas

Participating Frequently

Depends on what the web environment is capable. Maybe you could get it to work in CMYK?

The trouble is not that it isn't possible, but to get the same CMYK values again after converting to RGB and then to CMYK again.

Maybe you should read up on color management.

Maybe I could get it to work in CMYK, but it it appears that the svg file exported by Illustrator doesn't contain the cmyk information.
From what we tested it seems that we need to export it to svg in order to be able to edit in in a web environment effectively.

On the other hand, I have noticed that the svg file produced by Illustrator contains some encoded information, which Illustrator uses when the file is opened.
Is there any info about how to decode that information?
This could be useful, because it contains all the correct cmyk colors and Illustrator gives priority to this encoded data over the svg itself (so if you edit the svg file, and then reopen it for edition in Illustrator, the program ignores the svg data and uses its encoded info).

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Is there a way to get Illustrator to export device-cmyk() or icc-color() values in addition to RGB colors in an SVG file?

SVG files store HEX color values.

J

jon__wuAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Monika,

The hex values are RGB colors. I'm looking for a way to get CMYK colors exported in addition to the RGB colors so that I can get the print colors correct when converting my SVG back to PDF later in my workflow.

Here's an example:

<color-profile name="acmecmyk" xlink:href="http://printers.example.com/acmecorp/model1234"/>

See http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGColor12/#icc-colors for more info on icc-color(). device-cmyk() is another possibility.

I suspect that Illustrator may not support either of these but I wanted to verify. If it doesn't, any ideas for other workarounds? The assumption is that Illustrator will not be involved after the file is exported to SVG which is why it's important to get the CMYK equivalents exported with the RGB colors during the initial export to SVG.

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