| Sign in: |
| Members log in here with your user name and password to access the your admin page and other special features. |
|
|
|
|
|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
A CMYK problem!
David Harden, Student/Intern, Photographer
 |
Tucson | Az | USA | Posted: 2:41 PM on 12.18.03 |
->> I am going to be taking over as my newspapers photo editor for the second time next semester. My question is this. We do all of our online stuff RGB obviously and all the paper stuff CMYK. I am responsible for doing both. So my question is this..
For as long as I have worked at our paper CMYK color has plagued the paper. We get our papers in the morning and they are way to yellow or have an a$$ load of magenta, are cyan heavy, muddy, you name, it happens. We have had our printing company come in and calibrate our monitors and the problem persists. The way color managment is done now is the photos are done in RGb, saved for online, then converted to CMYK worked on again and saved for the paper. The photos can sometimes look great on the screen and will come out looking like crap in print.
I have been told in the past to take out 10 percent of color from the get go once the images are converted to CMYK. Others have said "you just have to keep getting the paper every morning and calibrate from those."
I know this is a problem a lot of papers have and sometimes it is the printers fault, but it seems to happen almost everyday in our paper.
I am really concerned about this because I want it to stop. It makes the pictures look bad the next day, and it makes our desk look bad.
If anyone has any suggestions on what I can and should be doing I would really appreciate it. I know this can be a pretty complex thing so if you do take the time to respond I will take it to heart.
Just to let you know I do most color management in curves using adjustment layers etc.. And I am completely proficient in Photoshop so whatever you say I should know what you are talking about. Also I am going to get the Photoshop color management book for Christmas so if you know specific page numbers form that book let me know. Thank you in advance!
-Dave |
|
Matthew FitzGerald, Student/Intern
|
San Diego | CA | USA | Posted: 3:00 PM on 12.18.03 |
->> David,
I'm right there with you man!
Our student daily has changed printers over each of the last two summers which compounds the problem.
What we do for color images and this is still not perfect:
Open the Levels control box and set the output box on the left to 25, and then in the Hue/Saturation box, resaturate it to approx. 15 (whatever level doesn't distort the color)
If anyone has a better method, I would love to hear about it.
fitz |
|
Andrew Phelps, Photographer, Student/Intern
|
Vista (San Diego) | CA | USA | Posted: 3:09 PM on 12.18.03 |
->> David,
Does the printer require you to make the CMYK conversions?
We send our paper to press with all images in RGB - the printer makes the appropriate conversions and they always look terrific on paper. |
|
Ian Elliott, Photographer
|
Junction City | OR | USA | Posted: 3:12 PM on 12.18.03 |
->> David,
How are you calibrating the CMYK printers? I have worked with printing ink (not newspapers) in a past life. The method we used was to obtain spectral reflectance curves from an integrating spectrophotometer (not a colorimeter). Those curves will be used to "mismatch" the printing ink, so that after the ink has dried you will get color matches that resemble the RGB monitor colors. As you know mixing ink (subtractive color matching) is radically different from mixing light (additive color matching).
The other thing to check on is Metamerism. If different spectral compositions provoke the same sensation of color, then metamerism is present. If metamerism is present, and I suspect that it is, you will see a color shift depending on 1) Observer, 2) Illuminant, and 3) Material. Check first that you do not have severe metamerism, if you do not discover this you will be chasing your tail. There is a index of metamerism that will quantify the problem for you.
When you color match your physical sample do so under standardized illuminants such as D65 or Tungsten A, depending on specifications. Fluorescent light is the worst illuminants to match under, due to it's not standard spectral composition. The CIE (Commission International de L'Eclairage) has established all the standards for various illuminant in the industry.
My suggestion is to take another look at the color matching process: 1) Define the standards to be used, 2) Evaluate the final product for Metamerism, 3) Document the spectral reflectance profile of your printing inks, 4) Establish HVC (Hue, Value, and Chroma) standards for your printers, 5) Hold your suppliers of ink and paper accountable to the agreed to standards..
Good luck.
Ian |
|
Michael Hickey, Photographer
|
Muncie | IN | USA | Posted: 3:12 PM on 12.18.03 |
| ->> There's so many variables without more information I'm afraid you're not going to get much help. What are your Photoshop color settings. How were your monitors calibrated? |
|
David Harden, Student/Intern, Photographer
|
Tucson | Az | USA | Posted: 3:20 PM on 12.18.03 |
->> I may have been a little vague in my acquistion.
Here's the deal with out paper. We are a student publication so I do all color management. I am responsible for converting to CMYK. Once i have saved my image after the CMYK color corrections, the color is not touched again. We PDF our paper send it to the printer and the printer prints it. They do nothing with the color(as far as I know). As I said before the printer came and calibrated our monitors(what they did exactly I do not know, I wasn't in charge at the time). So basically ALL CMYK color corrections are my responsiblity. As far as I know the printer does nothing with my image after it has been PDF'd. I don't know if this info helps. Hopefully it does!
-Dave |
|
Daniel Horan, Student/Intern, Photographer
|
St. Bonaventure | NY | USA | Posted: 3:30 PM on 12.18.03 |
->> we have the exact same problem at St. Bonaventure Univ. We use the local daily to print our paper (front page news and front page sports print color). We use Quark Xpress for layout and save all image files as PS-EPS files and lay them to the page after adjusting the orginal color RGB Jpeg files in PS.
All of the B/W photos look sharp and properly printed (98% of the time) but every week there is something wrong with the color printing, and it appears to be something different every week. Printing issues very similar to David's. (to much ____: magenta,cyan,yello,etc. or bleeding or whatever)
Our newsroom and photo/graphics procedures have remained the constant so we've ruled our toning out of the question. I've been working with our Editor in Chief and M.E. to work with the printer to clear it up.
Sorry if that's vague too, but it's a problem we can't seem to shake and any other advice would be great!
Thanks a bunch!
Happy Shooting,
Dan |
|
David Harden, Student/Intern, Photographer
|
Tucson | Az | USA | Posted: 3:37 PM on 12.18.03 |
| ->> I don't know if I made this clear in my posts before, but we have a seperate company that prints our paper, we have absolutely nothing to do with the printing, it is done by a company called Intermountain. That is why I am asking what I should be doing with CMYK since I have no control over what is happening during printing. Thanks again!! |
|
Ian Elliott, Photographer
|
Junction City | OR | USA | Posted: 3:39 PM on 12.18.03 |
->> David,
You are set up for a no win situation, unless you change what has happened in the past. First if you are "in-charge" then get hold of the printers and communicate the standards you want from them. You say they (the printers) do nothing with the color, as far as you know. I bet they do! Here is what they do: 1) They do not request color standards from you (or you from them), 2) they let the stock paper change (according to your information) "they are way too yellow or have an a$$ load of magenta, are cyan heavy, muddy, you name, it happens". 3) They let the ink change from batch to batch, they are giving you what you don't want according to your complaint.
If you are in charge, stop-the-madness. I know it's not so easy for you right now, but the solution lies in simple industrial control systems. This is a relatively easy problem to solve, but you must include the rest of the supply chain in your control system. Establish written standards that apply to solving this problem. Document, document, and document what works and what does not.
Take care.
Ian |
|
Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
|
San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 3:54 PM on 12.18.03 |
->> The entire process has to be calibrated, starting at the press, working back through the platemaker, the film writer, etc. and eventually ending up with your monitors. Each part of the process has to be calibrated to the next. It's not enough to do a simple calibration of your monitors.
You also have to set the CMYK conversion settings in Photoshop so that they are appropriate for the press output. Those settings have to be determined in concert with your printer.
--Mark |
|
Michael J. Treola, Photographer
|
Neptune | NJ | USA | Posted: 4:28 PM on 12.18.03 |
->> David
My paper went through some color management issues that have been since resolved. Sure we still have the occasional mess of a digital image that just can’t be worked on any further but the percentage of ugly images to great photos are tiny.
Now what we did isn’t going to be the end all solution to your problem but you should be able to walk away with a couple of tips that might be part of the answer for you.
The company started looking at the printing presses and worked backwards. Having the presses running efficiently was as important of the process as anything else. Through some investigation we a few faults on the presses including damaged ink rollers and plate blankets that needed overhaul. We also switched from petroleum-based inks to soy-based inks which resulted in crisper overall color and which is easier on the machinery (so I’ve been told though not a expert here).
The one thing that was a tremendous help to the pressmen was a grey bar that was added (with design considerations taken) to the bottom of our color section fronts. This very simply grey bad allowed the pressmen to set their inks based upon that grey bar which well…should look grey. If when we got a stack of papers and that bar was magenta, yellow or whatever and so was the photo we brought that to the attention of the pressroom managers and the necessary corrections was made on the press end. Now if that grey bar is grey and the photos are a mess then you have to look further down the line for your problems.
We looked at our image setters and ran density tests along with test strips to make sure that our line screen and not being plugged up by bad chemistry or calibration. This needed only minor tweaks.
Now for the good stuff…our computers.
The one thing the photo/image tech department lacked greatly was calibrated monitors and properly selected Photoshop color management settings. This was a HUGE issue in our quality control. Our first problem was that our monitors were in an open room near windows, which was a big no-no we learned. The changing light through the day changed how our imaging department viewed the photos on the screen. Though all photo toning was done by value numbers you still have to look at the screen for that just perfect product.
Once the computers were moved we bought a high-end monitor calibrator. Since no two monitors are the same and are always changing the calibration process should be a monthly task. Adobe Photoshop’s color setting especially the CMYK, Grey Scale and Black Point (Dot Gain) preferences need to be addressed. You should ask your printer for the correct settings. These settings control the output of your images and are important. We also set a target black point and highlight on our images in the curves box. Those CMYK target numbers keep highlights from getting blown out and shadows from being plugged up when a highlight and shadow is selected (or auto curve/levels clicked)
The last thing we did was purchased a large format printer that allowed us to print on newsprint a soft proof of our color sections fronts. This printer allowed the photo imaging desk to see the photos on newsprint and make the last little tweaks to the images before they went to press. These little steps helped the total solution of nice looking photos in the paper.
Tree |
|
Michael Hickey, Photographer
|
Muncie | IN | USA | Posted: 4:40 PM on 12.18.03 |
| ->> I would do most of the color editing in the RGB mode. The RGB gamut is so much larger than CMYK, and if you're trying to get a certain color or look out of CMYK it may not be possible. Leave CMYK editing to the printers. Make sure you're in the Adobe RGB 1998 working space. Check your conversion setups, use perceptual or rel. colormetric intent, find out what your dot gain is, when coverting to CMYK make sure your in a SWOP uncoated mode. Sounds like they just did an "eyeball" calibration, this is less than optimum and monitors (especially CRT's) need monthly calibrations. |
|
Allan Campbell, Photographer, Assistant
|
Salem (Portland) | OR | USA | Posted: 5:27 PM on 12.18.03 |
| ->> Real world color management by Fraser Murphy and Bunting is a good place to start. Ask your printer if they have profiles for you to use in Photoshop. If they do not have them then your color balance will always be hit and miss (pressman's choice). If the press hasn't spent the time getting calibrated in-house then you are in trouble. How many copies do you print? Most printers want to keep waste to 10% or less so on a run of 1000 you get 100 throw aways and they start keeping copies on the stack. Can you post some examples of what you think are well preped photos for us to see. |
|
James Parlevliet, Student/Intern, Photographer
|
West Hills | CA | USA | Posted: 1:12 AM on 12.19.03 |
->> David, I ran into this problem as a Photo Editor and have no fear. I think that your problem is that you are working in CMYK color space and not in the RGB color space. Remember that your monitors are three color and not four color.
Assuming that your printer is correct in the calibrations, there is a couple of things that you can do. Pre-press, as it is called, in RGB color, but use a CMYK preview. You do this by doing on a Mac, Command Y, or on PC, Control Y. This allows you to see what you are doing in four color separation while allowing your monitor to function in three color separation.
Switch back and fourth between preview and standard RGB mode and if there is little to no change, than you have done it right. By the sheer nature of how the colors separate on the press, Reds or other magenta tones WILL NEVER reproduce correctly, and will always be muddy.
Also, I would advise creating a graybar. Please e-mail me or call me for further details on this.
Hope I helped, but feel free to call if you need help. |
|
Baron Sekiya, Photographer
|
Kailua-Kona | HI | USA | Posted: 1:40 AM on 12.19.03 |
->> We had color all over the place at our paper so we had a Color Management guru come over from our sister paper with some gizmos. He calibrated all monitors that touch color photos and created ICC profiles for them all so they all view color the same way.That takes care of the monitors.
He then calibrated the imagesetter, platemaker and finally the press with test prints and a colorimeter to read out the ink levels. He then fed this info back into Photoshop so CMYK seps would be produced correctly.
The result is more uniform color and when we change mode from RGB to CMYK in Photoshop there is only a slight color shift. Previously the color shift was pretty bad and CMYK would look terrible compared to viewing in RGB mode.
We're still not out of the woods yet as our press needs to get with the program and stick to standards and hopefully they will start printing target grayscales and colors in the paper, most likely in the fold where folks wouldn't see them much.
Having a color management/Photoshop guru is a blessing when they really know what they're doing. |
|
David Harden, Student/Intern, Photographer
|
Tucson | Az | USA | Posted: 8:21 PM on 12.19.03 |
->> Wow! I came back into town today after a job I did and saw all the people that continued to add to this post. I just wanted to give a big thanks to everyone who contributed. A lot of you gave me suggestions that I never knew or even had thought about before. I think I am going to win this battle thanks to all you guys!! Thanks again!
-Dave |
|
Ron Holman, Photographer
|
Visalia | CA | USA | Posted: 2:06 AM on 12.20.03 |
->> We added a grey bar (composed of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) to the bottom of our section fronts as part of our effort to improve our overall reproduction. It is a very telling device. We were chasing our tales before when photogs were trying to correct for the press while pressmen were trying to correct for us. Now they shoot for a proper grey bar and the rest is our resposibility.
One other issue we face on the smaller paper we print is the number of copies printed. The run is so short that the pressmen have only enough time to make two adjustments before the run is over. Waste is a bigger issue than in years past since ad dollars are harder to come by. Your printer may be facing similar issues if they bid the job too low. |
|
Return to --> Message Board Main Index
|