How to convert a picture from AdobeRGB to CMYK Fogra39

[MatPel]

Hi there,

I took pics for a client that now they need to printed and they are asking me TIFF files in CMYK Fogra39.

At the moment images are saved in PSD AdobeRGB.

There is a way to maintain colours as close as possible and also do I need to apply some sharpening (overlay)?

Thanks for your help.

😊

[D Fosse]

It's straightforward enough, just Edit > Convert to Profile.

However, you're likely to see some gamut clipping. Some colors that can be contained in Adobe RGB, can not be reproduced in FOGRA39. There's nothing you can do about that, but you may want to compensate if you have areas where it's very pronounced.

Hard clipping can look unpleasant, with a dense, opaque look without texture. In other cases it may not be a problem. It depends, it's up to you.

Keep the file in Adobe RGB, and proof to FOGRA39 (View > Proof Setup). You will then see in real time how the final conversion will look. If it looks good, just do the conversion (on a copy, obviously).

There's a gotcha to this. You need a wide gamut monitor. If you have a standard gamut monitor, everything you see on screen is already clipped to sRGB. You don't see the full Adobe RGB gamut anyway, so proofing is really of little value.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

Photoshop ships with an Adobe created profile for Fogra39:

External filename: CoatedFOGRA39.icc

Internal Profile Description: Coated FOGRA39 (ISO 12647-2:2004)

There are many others out there, this print condition is also known as ISO Coated v2, however you may prefer to play it safe and use an ISO Coated v2 300% total ink variation on the standard profile.

Not all profiles are created equal, so although they may all be targeting the same nominal printing condition, resulsts can vary so it can be wise to see if you prefer the conversion of one profile vs. another, particularly so for images that are wildly out of gamut.

[D Fosse]

There are differences between Coated FOGRA39 and ISO Coated 300%, mainly in black generation. The ink limit is also different, FOGRA is 330%. But they should produce the same result in terms of color.

[Stephen_A_Marsh]

These differences are irrelevant variations within the wider print condition. You can convert to Fogra39 and assign the ISO Coated v2 profiles, or convert to ISO Coated v2 and assign Fogra39 and there should be +/- 1-2 Lab colour value differences as both of these profiles are made from the same characterisation data. 

[Bob_Hallam]

As mentioned the conversion is relatively straight forward.  Edit > Convert to Profile will do that.  Adding sharpening will depend on how the image will be printed.  If it's 150 line, or 60 lpc  then just a bit, because screening reduces the picture information to a series of solids that's integrated visually.  Adding sharpness to the image helps when screening happens.  

[MatPel]

Well guys,

First. Thank you very much all of you for your prompt reply. It's a campaign that I shoot and retouched and honestly, it was quite complicated .... everybody is happy with the results. I didn't want to mess up with the final delivery of the images.

I mages look very good also in CMYK and I just save them in Tiff as they ask.

Sending over and I'll let you know in 24hr.

Have a good night.

🙂