Remove everything CMYK in a document

Hi @Swedemike ,

if you do a new document I would start out with a web intent for the new document type.

From my German InDesign showing the legacy New Document dialog:

All standard swatches will be in RGB from the start:

The transparency blend space is defined as Document RGB from the start:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

Don't know if this is helpful, but you say you do mostly RGB web-based output. That suggests to me that you sometimes use the Export to PNG and/or Export to JPG. Make sure you do *not* check on the "Simulate Overprint" checkbox. If you do this, the whole image output dims down to a color range limited by CMYK.

#target indesign  
//a script to convert CMYK to RGB images, by Mike Witherell, ACE  
//be sure to run this on a copy of your files as it overwrites the originals
  
var doc = app.activeDocument,  
links = doc.links,  
i, link, image;  
  
UpdateAllOutdatedLinks();  
  
for (i = links.length-1; i >= 0; i--) {  
     link = links[i];  
     if (link.status == LinkStatus.NORMAL) {  
          image = link.parent;  
          if (image.space == "CMYK") {  
               CreateBridgeTalkMessage(link.filePath);  
          }  
     }  
}  
  
UpdateAllOutdatedLinks();  
  
//===================== FUNCTIONS ===============================  
function CreateBridgeTalkMessage(imagePath) {  
     var bt = new BridgeTalk();  
     bt.target = "photoshop";  
     bt.body = ResaveInPS.toSource()+"("+imagePath.toSource()+");";  
     bt.onError = function(errObj) {  
          $.writeln("Error: " + errObj.body);  
     }  
     bt.onResult = function(resObj) {}  
     bt.send(30);  
}  
  
function ResaveInPS(imagePath) {  
     var psDoc;  
     app.displayDialogs = DialogModes.NO;  
     psDoc = app.open(new File(imagePath));  
      psDoc.changeMode(ChangeMode.RGB);  
      psDoc.close(SaveOptions.SAVECHANGES);  
     app.displayDialogs = DialogModes.ALL;  
}  
  
function UpdateAllOutdatedLinks() {  
     var link, c;  
     for (var c = doc.links.length-1; c >= 0; c--) {  
          link = doc.links[c];  
          if (link.status == LinkStatus.LINK_OUT_OF_DATE) link.update();  
     }  
}  

If you are intending an RGB outcome, you would make Edit > Transparency Blend Space > RGB and you would place RGB images into the layout.

But you would NOT turn on Proof Colors. That imitates a CMYK condition, and you would have no reason to do that.

@Swedemike

What exactly are you producing? Maybe you can do everything in Photoshop? 

You can export PDF from Photoshop. 

InDesign supports multiple colour models at the same time, RGB, HEX, CMYK etc. 

The final output is controlled by the user to convert the images to any colour space they wish.

PDF X4a will maintain the colours as they are, if they are RGB, CMYK etc. they stay that way in the PDF.

If you place CMYK images, it will show you the colour of the CMYK proxy (as InDesign generates it's only image preview and doesn't show the actual image). 

For your documents changing your Transparency Blend Space to RGB would be good anyway.

But typically - making a changes with 0 documents open (no documents at all) makes it default for any new document. 

Any previous document will inherit the previous settings. 

So you'd have to change your settings for previous files for each document that haven't changed.

If you tell us more about your workflow maybe a script or something could sit in a startup folder that converts assigns colour profiles and sets the Proof Setup for any document that is opened. 

This would mean that the Script would be active for any and all documents - as you never go to print you wouldn't have an issue. 

But if things changed you'd need to remove the script from your startup folder.

I guess the script could offer an option to apply the settings or not on open that would mitigate any issues of accidentally converting files by mistake. 

But if you can share more of what you need then maybe we can help more. 

@rob day is really good with setups for colour management and possibly offer better advice (when I say possible, I mean definitely 😄 )