1 Correct answer
If you are doing test-prints, I would suggest doing a grid of swatches. You'll get more colours and you can keep it as a guide for the future.
Pick 2 Colours to test, in this case I have added Magenta going down and Cyan to the Right. In your case you would use RGB instead of CMYK colours. Keep the Test Print and the actual File so you can figure out what the colour formula was in the file. Something like this:
Explore related tutorials & articles
27
Replies
Thank you, I'll check it out. However, CMYK is too limiting and RGB helps to maximize the color gamut for giclee printing.
By @KD11
If this is giclee reproduction using a professional inkjet printer, like one of the wide-format types that can print very large sizes on fine-art papers, it should be clarified that there is more than one kind of CMYK profile to use here. One of them is what you should be using, and the other is not relevant. The CMYK that is not relevant is traditional press CMYK. Any profiles representing common commercial press CMYK will be, as you already know, too small of a gamut for giclee prints because they use only the four typical CMYK inks.
The “CMYK” that is relevant is for the larger gamut of those pro inkjet printers. If you are already soft-proofing with an ICC profile for the exact ink and paper combination that will be used in the inkjet printer that will do your giclee prints, then you are already doing the best you can and you can do no better, because that profile represents the maximum range of colors possible on that printer+ink+paper combination.
The reason I put “CMYK” in quotes is because the color profile for that printer+ink+paper combination technically won’t represent RGB or traditional press CMYK. For example, if it’s going to be printed on a 44-inch-wide capable Epson SureColor P9570, as a 12-ink printer with multiple shades of some inks it’s really CcMmYKkkOGV. The lower case letters are the lighter versions of the cyan, magenta, and black inks for smoother color transitions, and the last three inks are orange, green, and violet to expand the total color gamut. This will get you somewhat more colors than press CMYK, but still not cover all of Adobe RGB.
Just to give you a visual idea of that difference, the 3D gamut plots below show Adobe RGB (1998) in gray, overlaid on the left with a typical CMYK press gamut, and on the right with the gamut of the Epson wide format fine art printer example mentioned above. There are two lessons from this:
- If you are working with a printing company that will send your file to an expanded gamut fine art printer, then it is potentially capable of reproducing significantly more colors than traditional press CMYK.
- Even the very best fine art giclee printers cannot come close to approaching the color gamut of Adobe RGB (1998). There is just no way. All inks can do is reflect colors, competing with RGB colors that can be created by a screen that can generate its own light for purer, more saturated colors. Ink on paper cannot possibly compete with that.
Also note the print colors that extend past Adobe RGB (1998). Yes, that means there are colors that can be printed that can’t be previewed because they are outside some regions of Adobe RGB (1998).
No technique can reach colors beyond the outer wall of the printer/ink/paper gamut you are using. The value of soft-proofing is to preview how colors are behaving within that wall (shifting), and when the colors are hitting the wall (clipping).
If you must use Adobe RGB (1998) colors in that large expanse beyond what even the best printers can reach, a line of research for you is techniques used by expert prepress color editors over the decades. They are the ones who prepared images of artworks for art books and magazines like National Geographic, creating the illusion of a vivid color reproduction even when all they had to work with was the very limited gamut of press CMYK. That word “illusion” is important: They simply could not get to more colors, so they never create that expectation. They had to exploit color relationships, based on color theory and the spectral limitations of the unavoidably impure inks, to create the best looking representation under CMYK limitations even though some colors that got printed might not be anywhere near the original colors if it was impossible for them to be.
If you looked at colorful paintings by the Renaissance masters or abstract expressionists in fine art books or on posters, you might think “wow, those colors are amazing!” But the only reason you think that is you never saw the CMYK print next to the original artwork. If you did, you would instead say “Good lord, that book or poster looks nothing like the original, how awful.” In other words, you can achieve a great translation of highly saturated colors to “CMYK” that will satisfy everyone, but that same reproduction will inevitably be disappointing if anyone is able to compare the print reproduction to the original.
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.
AdChoices