How can I get vibrant, almost neon colors to print?

The bottom line for my art creation method seems to start my Illustrator file with the ICC profile, or make a copy with that profile.

By @KD11

That works if the image will only ever be reproduced on a printer of that gamut. Converting an image to a specific output profile limits flexibility for future printing methods that might print more or different colors. The more future-proof practice is to keep the original in a wide RGB color gamut, but while you are working, enable soft-proofing to preview the gamut of the target printer+ink+paper combination. In this way you simulate the target printing conditions as you work, and without irrevocably restricting the document colors to that gamut. Keeping the original wide RGB gamut keeps your option open: For example, if 5 years from now a new printer reproduces wider colors, you can simply adjust or re-intensify the colors because they were not permanently clipped to an arbitrary small gamut. It will still be possible to print a reproduction of the original work closer to the original colors. You would simply change the soft-proof simulation to the profile for the new printer, and then see if the document colors need updating and by how much.

From there, it sounds that the method is to manually adjust colors to create the desired look-and-feel while remaining in the printable color gamut. I have to say, this is another big additional task when creating a lot of artwork in Illustrator.

By @KD11

Yes. Artists and designers do not have to worry about this if the most important medium for the artwork is the one it was created in. For example, if you are an oil painter, and if how the original painting looks on the wall is much more important than how its colors reproduce in print, then you paint with whatever vibrant saturated pigments you want, and let other people worry about hammering the colors to fit into a print reproduction gamut. But…if you are an oil painter and you consider the print reproductions to be as important or more important than how the original painting looks on the wall (for example, maybe it was commissioned for a book cover), then you have to research and test which colors to paint with so that it looks just as good in a print reproduction. It’s all a matter of priorities: If print reproduction is vitally important, you work to make it look good in print, even if it restricts your color gamut.

Even before digital, if a designer was hired to do work that was primarily for print reproduction, they would probably build their color palette from CMYK swatch books because how those color values reproduce was known. If the art director says they paid extra to set up one more ink to reproduce an especially vivid brand color precisely with a spot ink, then the designer knew they could also use the color of that one spot ink. Although brighter pigments and dyes existed, that was not something they could take advantage of if they were to fulfill the requirement that it has to reproduce as expected under the job’s printing conditions.

So yes, it is an additional task to restrict that gamut, but if your or someone else requires that the colors look good under the gamut of those printing conditions, then working within that gamut is non-negotiable, it is a job requirement, as it was even before digital. Nothing new or extraordinary here.

Do you have any other suggestions on how to best approach this? I ususally start creating in the iPad and further rework files on my laptop cloud app, following with much back and forth.

By @KD11

You ask a very important question by bringing the iPad into this. Because earlier I said one recommended solution is to soft-proof through the printing conditions so you can see what it’s going to look like, and I do that on my computer display. But the problem with the iPad is that no Adobe apps currently support soft-proofing on it. Soft-proofing is currently rare in iPad apps, partly because of limited support for customized color management on iPad OS.

If you have both an iPad and a profiled or calibrated desktop display, then at least you can start working on the iPad, open it on your computer and soft-proof, adjust the overall color palette until it works in the soft proof, open it on the iPad and continue using that same color palette that was adjusted on the computer through a soft proof. Using Illustrator Cloud Documents can make this a little easier, because the same cloud document can be opened on iPad or computer in one click from the Home screen with changes syncing automatically.

This might get a bit technical, but just to make it clear what is going on when you edit on an iPad or other Apple display, because Apple displays use the P3 wide color gamut: You have set a document to the Adobe RGB color gamut, are previewing the colors on a display with the P3 color gamut (about the same size as, but different 3D color gamut coverage than Adobe RGB), for reproduction within the much more restricted gamut of a specific combination of printer, ink, and paper. So yes, it is a bit of a game to thread the work’s colors through that series of gamuts. But those who learn how, get fewer nasty/expensive surprises doing cross-media color reproduction.