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RGB/CMYK for print

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
May 17, 2017
2 replies
10581 views

Hey everyone, I have some photos in an InDesign file for print that are in RGB mode. When I export to a cmyk pdf is it going to convert the photos or do I need to edit each photo that is still in rgb?

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Correct answer Derek Cross

Keep the documents in RGB. If you use an inkjet printer select from the InDesign Acrobat PDF Presets, High Quaity Print. For commercial litho/digital printing select PDF/X-4 (unless your Prnter had supplied a spec).

S

Steve K Walker

Inspiring

Exporting as PDF/X-4 is not enough to get good results.

If you pick the wrong colour profile you could end up with a very poor result. PDF/X-4 won't save you.

Much more importantly you need to know which colour profile will be best for the printer who will be handling the final file (it's always best to ask the printer but from my experience FOGRA39 gives the best conversion from RGB to CMYK under most circumstances).

InDesign will then convert from RGB to CMYK using the specified profile (just the same as converting from RGB to CMYK in Photoshop would do).

But be careful - in most instances leaving InDesign to do the conversion will suffice.

However if you had images that you wanted the absolute best results from, then I would suggest converting in Photoshop.

This would allow you to evaluate each conversion individually and apply further corrections once the conversion has happened (if required).

If you need more info I will be happy to provide.

Danny Whitehead.

Legend

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Stephen+K+Walker wrote
However if you had images that you wanted the absolute best results from, then I would suggest converting in Photoshop.
This would allow you to evaluate each conversion individually and apply further corrections once the conversion has happened (if required).

I agree with Rob. Unless you really know what you're doing and have good reason to do it, post-separation corrections are likely to do more harm than good.

R

roberte13933108

Known Participant

it strikes me that with each new printer I turn to, the first problem is always how the rip translates a submitted pdf. Mostly the printer wants a stripped down, pdfx1a with converted rgb to cmyk and no export intent profile. This works in an all CMYK pdf file. It doesn't work where the pdf has grayscale images mixed with the cmyk images. My imperative is that the Dmax of the grayscale images should be close to 100% CMYK o,o,o,K. It is on my supplied pdfs, but so far it never is in the resultant book print. My quest here is to find out WHY.

Derek Cross

Correct answer

Community Expert

Keep the documents in RGB. If you use an inkjet printer select from the InDesign Acrobat PDF Presets, High Quaity Print. For commercial litho/digital printing select PDF/X-4 (unless your Prnter had supplied a spec).

C

chriso123Author

Participant

ok cool, so the pdf will still print properly?

Derek Cross

Community Expert

These settings will give you the best chance, though there are things, such as colour management, which will contribute to you "printing properly".

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