Colour Profiles in Australia

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
February 16, 2024
3 replies
3484 views

Hi All,

I have recently moved to Australia and was wondering what colour profile I should choose for my general use?

North America General Purpose 2
CMYK - US Web Coated (SWOP) v2

RGB - sRGB IEC61966-2.1

or

Europe General Purpose 3

CMYK - Coated FOGRA39

RGB - Adobe RGB (1988)

In my current job, I create some web content, as well as print collateral (printed here in Australia) and packaging (printed in China).

I would love to get some insight from fellow Australian designers... All info I can find online talks about color profile standards in the US or Europe.

Many thanks,
Marie

This topic has been closed for replies.

rob day

Community Expert

Hi @MarieMelb , generally speaking when choosing a Color Settings setup, where you live is less important than the printing method.

The CMYK profiles that ship with InDesign are all for separated offset printing. US Web Coated SWOP is a web pess offset profile for coated papers, and Coated FOGRA is a generic sheetfed offset profile for coated papers. None of the included CMYK profiles would be for a shortrun digital composite printer—typically composite printers use "RGB" drivers and the final conversion into the print space happens in the driver at output. So usually it is better to send profiled RGB color to a composite shortrun press rather than making an extra conversion to a random CMYK profie like the default US Web Coated SWOP, which will have to be converted again at output.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

"typically composite printers use "RGB" drivers"

Not really, no.

It is true that lower-end non-Postscript printers and some inkjets are RGB-based, but any professional digital copier and digital press that you would find at quality copy shops with a RIP front end are usually PS/PDF and CMYK-based, so any CMYK data from the source file is sent as such. RGB-data files are processed and color-managed THEN converted to CMYK by the RIP.

Brad @ Roaring Mouse

Community Expert

Most digital presses are meant to imitate the response of offset printing, even though their native gamut may be a fair bit wider. So, yes, there will be some CMYK profile adjustments going on.

For instance HP Indigo presses typically recommend using a FOGRA profile, while two other printers I use regularly use GRACOL with their Apogee RIP and Prinergy RIP workflows.

Either is actually quite fine as FOGRA and GRACOL have almost identical gamuts so when someone asks, those are the two I recommend usually. (I personally use GRACOL). US Sheefet Coated's gamut, on the other hand, is quite different: It was fine 20 years ago in the world of negatives and plates and the dot gain involved but using it now is inappropriate as most offset printing is straight to plate and digital presses have much less gain to worry about, so if you send a file processed with US Sheefted Coated to them, it will end up looking too light and thin in the midtones and highlights.

As far as RGB settings, most prepress workflows have set their default RGB response to sRGB, as that's what they are regularly going to get from people sending less professional files, like Word PDFs etc. (the lowest common denominator response). Although many RIPs have the ability to recognize mixed embedded profiles and handle them appropriately, others may not.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

I'm in Ireland and I've used Coated Fogra 39 for years too no problems.

But in reality - you should get joboptions file from the printers in Australia that best suits their press settings.

F

flaming1

Inspiring

I don't know if it happens in Australia, but often if you ask for joboptions from a printer in New Zealand you're just met with confusion. They simply don't use them.
Asking even some of the big printers what colour profile they would like us to use for a particular job and they simply don't have an answer.