Illustrator - Best practices for managing logo color for web and print versions.

[Arturo266834390dbm]

I'll start by saying that I'm a beginner. I'm looking for suggestions on best practices for setting up the workflow for designing a logo for use on the web and for traditional printing.

In my specific case, I'm facing a problem regarding colors. To decide which color or colors to adopt, I take inspiration from the colors and examples available on the web. So, RGB colors.

Questions:

1) How do I convert RGB values ​​to CMYK while preserving the color chosen in the RGB profile.

2) Illustrator warns when an RGB or CMYK color is outside the Gamut of the set profile. I also get the same warning with the RGB profile and the Web gamut. So, what should I pay attention to and how important are these warnings?

[Ton Frederiks]

1) How do I convert RGB values ​​to CMYK while preserving the color chosen in the RGB profile.

You cannot in most cases, RGB has a wider gamut than CMYK, so when converting RGB to CMYK you limit the colors to what is possible in CMYK. 

It would be better to start with a CMYK document and convert those colors to RGB by pasting them into an RGB document.

2) Illustrator warns when an RGB or CMYK color is outside the Gamut of the set profile. I also get the same warning with the RGB profile and the Web gamut. So, what should I pay attention to and how important are these warnings?

The top warning shows the CMYK equivalent for the selected color. If you click it, it will bring it into the current CMYK profile gamut, but it is still an RGB color.

The bottom one can be ignored, it comes from the time that monitors could only display 256 colors.

[Arturo266834390dbm]

@Jacob Bugge 

Thanks to both of you for your support.

Please confirm that the following reasoning is correct.

1) After opening the post I changed the default settings in Color Setting. The screenshot shows the new settings.

 

2) I created a new file with the RGB color profile, see screenshot below. I chose a sample color, the first from the left. The color panel shows two alerts represented by two icons for each alert arranged on two rows.

 

Questions related to point 2:
In each alert, the first icon on the left indicates the type of alert?,
The second icon shows the preview of the color proposed by Illustrator?

Does the alert on the first row concern the sRGB profile or the RGB profile?
Is the alert on the second row related to the RGB or CMYK gamut?

3) I copied the sample color into the file with the CMYK color profile used to design the logo. The color changed becoming like the 2nd color on the right. So, this should answer the question related to point 2 i.e., the out of gamut warning is referred to the CMYK profile even if it appears in a document with RGB color profile?

But if I set a color that goes outside the RGB gamut, does illustrator show a specific warning?

Many thanks

A

[Ton Frederiks]

"But if I set a color that goes outside the RGB gamut, does illustrator show a specific warning?"

You cannot specify an RGB color in an RGB document that goes outside the gamut of that RGB profile.

You can specify CMYK colors in an RGB document, like 100% Cyan, that goes outside the gamut, but they will be converted to the nearest possible RGB equivalent.

[Arturo266834390dbm]

So, the color panel shows only allows you to select colors that are in the RGB gamut. Right? Using numeric RGB values, you can't enter a color that is out of gamut?

 

[Ton Frederiks]

Yes you can only specify colors within the limits of the working space. The same numbers will give a different color in another RGB working space.

 

[Ton Frederiks]

Is there a reason you set the RGB in Color Settings to Adobe RGB? For Web use sRGB would be the better choice.

And is there a reason you set the CMYK in Color Settings Color Management Policies to Preserve Embedded Profiles?

[Arturo266834390dbm]

The settings come from tutorials found online, according to which sRGB can be replaced by RGB especially when the monitor you are working on has a good 98/100% compatibility with the greater range guaranteed by RGB.

"Preserve Embedded Profile" means that if I open a file not created with the color profile set in color setting, Illustrator will keep it? However, I have flagged the options to decide whether to leave the embedded profile or update to the work area profile. So, I do not risk altering files with different color characteristics but I can update the color management when needed. Can it be done better?

[Ton Frederiks]

The majority of screens and web apps use sRGB, so it makes sense to limit yourself at the moment.

Although you can use Adobe RGB, the color can change when displayed and converted to sRGB.

Adobe RGB is useful for edting images and printing to printers that have more than the standard CMYK inks.

CMYK: Preserve Numbers (Ignore Linked Profiles) is used to avoid conversion, especially when you want to keep 100% black as 100% black and not converted to a rich black containing percentages of CMYK. And it will also prevent that other 100% process colors will be contaminated with small percentages of other inks.

[Arturo266834390dbm]

Hi Tom, thanks for the info. It's very useful but for a layman who doesn't have the skills to find his way through the many options and make the right choice is not easy.

I'll try to summarize my doubts. The colors, palettes, themes to be used for use on the web (screen) proposed by the various online tools, even those from Adobe, are in RGB. So, how do I combine your suggestion to use an sRGB profile for graphics intended for the web when the samples are all in RGB. That is, when I identify a color or a pair of colors and exclaim Eureka, will those colors transferred to Illustrator and converted to the sRGB profile most likely change appearance?

Added to all this is the need to obtain the same result achieved for the web for printing on paper using the CMYK profile.

Can you please summarize a guideline, workflow to adopt when the goal is to manage the color of the logo so that the resulting colors have the same appearance on the screen and on paper.

Many thanks

A

PS:

Tom, I am even more confused, if that is possible....

First, I followed your suggestion and set the working color space to sRGB.

Then I checked the settings of the open document and, as you can see from the screenshot it is correctly set to RGB. Is there no sRGB option here?

Then I found that illustrator has the “Proof Setup” feature to allow you to run color proofs showing how the colors will look in different color profiles.

Opening the option I found it set to CMYK. In this use case, since I am choosing colors for the web I will have to which of the following options should I select “Internet Standard RGB (sRGB)” or “Monitor RGB”

 

[Monika Gause]

Take these online tools with a grain of salt. They are great for inspiration, but the numbers they present are not reliable, because those tools do not use proper color management.

[Ton Frederiks]

Arturo, Illustrator has 2 document color modes: CMYK and RGB. Which CMYK and which RGB is used when you create a new document is determined by the working spaces in your Color Settings. Generally, the colors you see on websites are sRGB.

[Ton Frederiks]

You may want to read these 2 help  files, but there is a lot more to learn about color and color management:

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/color.html

https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/keeping-colors-consistent.html

[Jacob Bugge]

Arturo,

Fundamentally, the range of colours is narrower in (plain) CMYK than in RGB, (especially) including brighter/more stunning colours.

You can see a bit about the fundamental differences,

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rgb+vs+cmyk+gamut&t=ftsa&atb=v320-1&ia=web

If you wish consistent colours, the safe way, as recommended in the old days, is to start out with CMYK colours.

But maybe things have moved so much into the bright(er) world of (RGB) screens that the appearance of (plain CMYK) print has a dwindling importance, so that many will settle for a certain resemblance, maybe using extended gamut printing for more important prints.

You can read a bit about extended gamut printing,

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=extended+gamut+printing&t=ftsa&atb=v320-1&ia=web

Edit: And what Ton said while I was still at it.