Adjusting for dot gain, cmyk

[tamsint97516221]

Hi,

When our paper goes to print it seems to come out a lot darker than we're seeing it our end.

We use the FOGRAS39 cmyk profile.

Is there any way of adjusting for dot gain / automatically converting to make photos brighter?

Thanks in advance...

[Frans v.d. Geest]

“Our end”? Is that on screen or on ink jet or proof printer? Dot gain is accounted for in the profle, however CMYK images are not managed like RGB are. Do you mean images or do you mean coloured blocks?

In short: we need more info...

[tamsint97516221]

Mainly on screen but also if we print on proof-printer (which tbf is not very good). I'll double check what that is..

I mean images - photos.

Cheers

[Frans v.d. Geest]

Is your screen calibrated and profiled?

Is this when you Soft Proof on screen?

Both conditions must be met to view colours on screen.

Are the images RGB or already (boo!) converted to CMYK?

[Danny Whitehead. · Accepted solution]

tamsint97516221  wrote

Hi,

When our paper goes to print it seems to come out a lot darker than we're seeing it our end.

We use the FOGRAS39 cmyk profile.

Is there any way of adjusting for dot gain / automatically converting to make photos brighter?

Thanks in advance...

Yes - determine the right profile and use that in place of FOGRA39.

Are you the printer? If not, ask your printer. Would 'our paper' happen to be a newspaper? If so, you'll definitely see a lot more dot gain than FOGRA39.

[tamsint97516221]

Thanks for all your help, I'm marking this one as correct but please see other comments for more detail and also note suggestions of screen calibration as well.

[Laubender]

Hi tamsint97516221 ,

did you provide contract proofs for this print job?

Is a FOGRA color wedge visible on every proof?

Is the wedge approved to show the right colors in the tolerance FOGRA allows?

Regards,
Uwe

[rob day]

Is there any way of adjusting for dot gain / automatically converting to make photos brighter?

As Franz noted dot gain and other press attributes are accounted for in the profile when you make the conversion, so either FOGRA is not an accurate profile of the press conditions, or you system's monitor profile is not accurate. CMYK color gets converted into your monitor RGB profile for the display, so both profiles have to be accurate for reliable CMYK soft proofing.

This shows how the destination CMYK profile affects the converted CMYK values:

AdobeRGB to FOGRA:

And US Sheetfed Coated, which allows for considerably more dot gain on the conversion:

[Frans v.d. Geest]

For some reason I'm always called FranZ here, like in German. I'm Dutch, and my name is FranS 😉

[rob day]

[Gusgsm]

Just a guess: Your screen might be too bright. If your screen is calibrated with a colorimetre, I'd try to recalibrate it with a much lower luminosity in mind (80-90 Cd/m2 or something like that)...

(Lou Dina explained all that much better than I (page 7-8))

Best regards

[tamsint97516221]

So it seems we should probably be using ISOnewspaper26v4.icc instead of Fogras39 - will try that and see if it helps.

Is it possible to set that colour profile as default in an Indesign template - so it doesn't default to that system wide? We send a lot of other jobs to printers calibrated to the FOGRAS39 profile - normally we haven't changed this - and we're a bit concerned that if we have to keep changing output profiles jobs might get sent to printer with the wrong one.

[Laubender]

tamsint97516221  wrote

So it seems we should probably be using ISOnewspaper26v4.icc instead of Fogras39 - will try that and see if it helps.

…

Absolutely not!

Unless you plan to print to a yellowish paper with newspaper characteristics.

Regards,
Uwe

[tamsint97516221]

we are printing to newsprint "with newspaper characteristics"?

[Laubender]

Read into this:

Newspaper Colour Profile Download - WAN-IFRA

Regards,
Uwe

[Frans v.d. Geest]

tamsint97516221  schreef

So it seems we should probably be using ISOnewspaper26v4.icc instead of Fogras39 - will try that and see if it helps.

Is it possible to set that colour profile as default in an Indesign template - so it doesn't default to that system wide? We send a lot of other jobs to printers calibrated to the FOGRAS39 profile - normally we haven't changed this - and we're a bit concerned that if we have to keep changing output profiles jobs might get sent to printer with the wrong one.

NO NO NO!

You should first Profile and calibrate your display!!!

[rob day]

So it seems we should probably be using ISOnewspaper26v4.icc instead of Fogras39

Is the job printing on newsprint?

[tamsint97516221]

yes

[Frans v.d. Geest]

Ah! If you DO print to newspaper (I misread that, sorry) then you use a newspaper profile indeed.

So what you meant with 'too dark' in the first post meant something else as most of us understood 😉

[rob day]

Also, the profile does more than simply adjust for dot gain.

The gamut on newsprint is much smaller—the primary CMYK colors print duller—and the profile compensates for saturation as well as the black plate generation. The conversion to a newsprint profile will typically have more black and a lot less total ink. The profile Uwe posted is similar in appearance to ISOnewspaper26v4.icc, but limits total ink to 180% vs. 220% for ISOnewspaper26v4.icc. Fogra Coated is 330%

And newsprint offset printing is quite unstable—the profile of the press is always changing—so you can't get overly fussy with color expectations.

[Laubender]

Hi Rob,

here the specs for WAN-IFRAnewspaper26v5.icc :

Profile Specifications

Name of profile: WAN-IFRAnewspaper26v5.icc
Application used: X-Rite i1Profiler version 1.5.6
ICC version: 2
Color space: primary and secondary colours of ISO 12647-3:2013
Dot gain compensation: 26%
Max ink coverage: 220%
Maximum GCR: heavy black with an early black start

Source: Newspaper Colour Profile Download - WAN-IFRA

Max ink coverage for ISOnewspaper26v4.icc is 240%, I think.

More details on printing conditions according to ISO 12647-3:2013 with WAN-IFRAnewspaper26v5.icc here:

https://www.wan-ifra.org/sites/default/files/field_article_file/Printing_standard.pdf

Regards,
Uwe

[rob day]

Right, I was checking with the color intent set to Relative Colorimetric.

Absolute Colorimetric does convert to the 220% in their specs, but will ruin most images:

With an image, Absolute ruins the tonality and exaggerates saturation

ISO Newspaper v4 26 has an almost identical appearance but with Relative the max is 217%

[Danny Whitehead.]

tamsint97516221  wrote

So it seems we should probably be using ISOnewspaper26v4.icc instead of Fogras39 - will try that and see if it helps.

Is it possible to set that colour profile as default in an Indesign template - so it doesn't default to that system wide? We send a lot of other jobs to printers calibrated to the FOGRAS39 profile - normally we haven't changed this - and we're a bit concerned that if we have to keep changing output profiles jobs might get sent to printer with the wrong one.

Yes. The ISOnewspaper26v4.icc profile is very common for newspaper ad specifications in the UK. I don't know about the rest of Europe. You can assign the profile to any Indesign file, including INDD templates.

Edit > Assign Profiles.