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Participant
September 6, 2022
Question

CMYK Colour charts

  • September 6, 2022
  • 5 replies
  • 1852 views

Is there a very comprehensive colour chart for CMYK colors in photoshop available to print onto my media to use as a reference?  

 

I find the standard stuff is limited in colours range across each colour in particular greys and blues.

 

Is there maybe a script where you can put in percentage ranges and get the chips created and labelled ready to print?  That would be superb, I am a complete novice at photoshop btw!

 

Thanks

 

Ian

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5 replies

Mike_Gondek10189183
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 26, 2022

Would be easier to create in an object based vector program like Illustrator, then open in photoshop. You can use the blend tool between 2 rectangles to make a range.

 

You can also google "cmyk color chart download"

NB, colourmanagement
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 26, 2022

Hard to know why you want to do this, but - you could download and print the ECI2002 colour target.

It's intended for profile making [no embedded proflle] so you'd need, in this case, to assign a CMYK profile [say ISO coated V2] - then print it out on a well profiled printer.

Now you can see what the printer does with specific the CMYK values in the target. 

 

That’s pretty much exactly what an ICC profile does. Printing a target through a non colour managed process allows software to  make a printer Icc profile - which provides tables to calculate between target patch values and Lab (Lab colour is an unequivocal definition of colour appearance).

More on profiles here

 

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer:: co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
September 25, 2022

CMYK is a device-dependent color space meaning, every CMYK device can produce its own recipe of CMYK and differ from another. 

See: 

http://digitaldog.net/files/CMYKPart1.pdf

http://digitaldog.net/files/CMYKPart2.pdf

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
c.pfaffenbichler
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 25, 2022

As @D Fosse mentioned desktop printers may actually process RGB data, so are you sure your output device does use CMYK-colors and processes CMYK images as such? 

 

Printing a »book of CMYK color swatches« for a specific device may not be that useful ultimately unless you are sure the images you are trying to optimize are only ever going to be printed on that one device (and the device’s color output is extremely stable). 

 

Could you elaborate on the setup and intentions? 

D Fosse
Community Expert
Community Expert
September 6, 2022

There is such a chart, and it's the icc profile for that particular print process (printer/paper/ink).

 

There is no such thing as a generic "CMYK mode". It's not an ideal, synthetic color space. CMYK always represents a particular print process, described in a CMYK profile. CMYK is where the rubber hits the tarmac, so to speak.

 

The limitation in color range is the limitation of actual physical ink on actual prhysical paper. That's a brick wall and there's nothing you can do about it. You can preview the color gamut by soft-proofing to the correct/appropriate CMYK profile.

 

CMYK "mode" just takes you to whatever CMYK profile you have set up as default in Color Settings (US Web Coated (SWOP), coated FOGRA39, ISO Coated (eci), PSO uncoated etc etc).

 

CMYK is strictly for commercial offset print. It does not apply to desktop inkjet printers.