Participating Frequently

Question

Indesign completely messes up the color of my images

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
March 6, 2019
9 replies
6339 views

Hi

I am a photograper from the Netherlands. I shoot photos for a local magazine (volunteers work). I shoot RAW and edit my photos in Lightroom. I export them as High res jpg's 300dpi sRGB (AdobeRGB is possible as well). I use a calibrated pro Monitor and pro camera's.

One of the other volunteers makes the magazine using Indesgn. When the magazine was printerd, the colors of the photos were completely of. Much to yellow. I mean I am not talking a bout a slight difference in color here, They were way off. Looking at the PDF that was sent to the printer, I noticed the colors in the PDF were of as well.

I guess we are making a mistake somewehere.

Any idea's??

Thanks

Steven

This topic has been closed for replies.

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

Well the designer was here yesterday. She inmported the profile which was provided by the printer and checked all settings in her Indesign.

The new magazine goes to the printer on wedenesday. Hope they can provide a contact proof.

I'll keep you postred. And thatks a lot for the valuebale input!! The internet is great thing ;-)

Greets

Steven

rob day

Community Expert

She inmported the profile which was provided by the printer and checked all settings in her Indesign...
The new magazine goes to the printer on wedenesday.

Just in case it isn’t clear—for an existing document (the magazine’s new issue?) make sure the designer uses Edit>Assign Profiles... to assign the new printer profile. Changing the CMYK Working Space in Color Settings will affect new documents made with that setting, but wouldn’t necessarily fix a color management problem in an existing doc that was setup incorrectly.

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

yeah I saw that 2 copies of the magazine had slightly different colors. No contact proof as far as I know.

Danny Whitehead.

Legend

Steven_nl wrote
yeah I saw that 2 copies of the magazine had slightly different colors. No contact proof as far as I know.

My money's definitely on the cast being introduced on press. If they supply a contract proof that looks correct, they're much more obliged to match it on press.

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

I dug up as low res version of the PDF. Now idea how to share it. The colors look fine in the PDF.

rob day

Community Expert

That probably isn’t useful unless you are sure the Output tab settings were the same for the final PDF—I assume the designer was generating the PDFs.

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

yeah she made the PDF for the printer. I did notice the whole magazine ghas a bit of a yellowish glow to it. The pages in the PDF are white. The printed pages look "of white"/very light beige

rob day

Community Expert

Looking at the PDF that was sent to the printer, I noticed the colors in the PDF were of as well.

Can you share the PDF?

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

I asked the designer yesterday. She hasn't replied yet

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

I'll make sure all of my images are in AdobeRGB

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi guys

Again thaks a lot for helping me out!! I really appreciate it. Unfortunatly I am not the person who works with Indesign (my fellow volunteer has not replioed to my questions yet, She is reallly really busy so I do not blame her}

I did go to the company that prints the magazine (no it is not a paper it is on matte glossy paper). A lot of what he had to say was difficult for me to completely understand. He did talk about the conversion to CMYK and the programms he uses to convert for printing. He said it was probably a problem between the photographer and Indesign.

I do understand there are differences between sRGB, AdobeRGB and CMYK. I can see the difference between the 2 versions above. But the example I posted form the magazine together with the screenshot is fairly accurate. the gagazine is lit by window light. Yes the photo is made witrh a phone and anot quite accurate, but the diffence between the magazine and the screen is quite accurate.)

when I put the AdobeRGB file in Photoshop and chgange it into CMYK there is a bit of a diffence but nowhere as much as the magazine.

I will post again as soon as I know more about the Indesign settings. Maybe I can get a hold of the PDF as well.

Thanks again!! here is the shot in AdobeRGB 72dpi

CMYK conversion

Danny Whitehead.

Legend

The issue is almost certainly happening downstream from you, so kudos to you for trying to solve it! You said you visited the printer. Did they supply or recommend a CMYK profile? That's what you need. Then the designer needs to set their InDesign colour management settings to 'Europe Prepress Defaults', but change the working CMYK profile to the one printer supplied/recommended, and the working RGB to sRGB. Then they need to assign those profiles to their InDesign files.

rob day

Community Expert

and the working RGB to sRGB. Then they need to assign those profiles to their InDesign files

Just in case it isn’t clear—when the RGB policy is set to Preserve Embedded Profiles, the InDesign RGB profile only affects native ID colors and swatches. A placed RGB image that includes an embedded AdobeRGB profile will override the InDesign document’s profile if it is not the same.

sRGB has a smaller gamut and can potentially clip some parts of the CMYK gamut on a conversion.

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Rob

The name of the magazine is "wijkkrant" Krant is newspaper, but it is a magazine on mat glossy paper. It would not suprise me of there is more then one pronblem. when I look at the front coverfoto the right side seems to be different then the left side. the same photo is used on a different page and that looks different again.

rob day

Community Expert

Have you communicated with the printer about their press CMYK profile?

I don’t think anyone in the forum would be able to tell you exactly what went wrong.

On your end make sure the RGB images you are delivering include an RGB profile when they are saved. Open the files in Photoshop and confirm they have the profile embedded and you get a matching preview between Photoshop and Lightroom.

Make sure your designer is creating documents with the Color Settings’ RGB Color Management Policy set to Preserve Embedded. The policy is saved with the document when it is created. As Frans noted, the Links panel would show RGB images as Document RGB if the RGB policy was set to Off. There was a bug with the initial release of CC2019, which turned off color management by default. Have your designer check that all placed RGB images are listing a profile and are not Document RGB.

An Export to PDF/X-1a forces all color to document CMYK. If your designer is exporting to a CMYK destination, it would be important to use your printer’s press profile as the document’s assigned CMYK profile. If the printer has a well color managed workflow, you might be better off making no color conversion (the default PDF/X-4 preset), and let the conversion to CMYK happen in the printer’s RIP.

Derek Cross

Community Expert

You need to understand that the range of colours (the gamut) in a RGB image is much greater than in CMYK. Bright orange and bright green, for example, will always print much duller. That’s where soft proofing can be helpful to give you an idea how the document might apppear when printed.

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

yes I understand that, I will ask the printer for the model of his printer and I can check in softproofing. But I have the feeling this difference (in example above) is far to big. But I know little to nothing about his. So I can use all the help and info you can give me!

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

PS

I think this is offset-print and not Inktjetprinter

Derek Cross

Community Expert

Which version of InDesign and OS?

Did you "soft proof" your document?

Presumably the images were Placed in InDesign as RGB images and you supplied your printer with (say) a PDF/X-4?

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Derek

Thnaks for taking the trouble!!

No I did not soft proff them. Just did an export form Lightroom CC.

I have no idea whjich version of Indesign she is using. I can ask if it is important. She is using an Apple.

Also no idea what printer is being used. It is a professional setup (The make 5000 copies for us)

Sorry I do not have more info. I am just a simple photographer. ;-)

I can ask the print shop and my fellow volunteer form more info?

S

Steven_nlAuthor

Participating Frequently

to give you a bit of an idea. I put the magazine next to my screen and made a photo with my phone. Obviously not a very scietific way, but it does give an idea about hte differences in color I am talking about.

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