Comments on: RGB to CMYK (.0)

By: freddy

freddy — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:18:34 +0000

just wanna say thanks man ^^

By: Dore

Dore — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 14:12:13 +0000

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something. — Thomas Huxley

By: Bob Levine

Bob Levine — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:03:43 +0000

InDesign will use whatever colors you tell it to use. How are you supplying the files to the printer? If you use the Press PDF setting it should convert all the RGB to CMYK for you, but if you’ve used RGB black for your text, you’ll still have a problem. The wrong PDF settings however will cause everything to convert to RGB.

Look in your swatches panel to see if the colors are RGB or CMYK. The icon on the right side will show you.

By: SRSG MAGAZINE

SRSG MAGAZINE — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:55:10 +0000

I am in RGB CMYK HELL. I am new to magazine publishing. I sware I made my first nine issues with every image in rgb and the printer didn’t say a word. Now, I think they must have just converted it and went on. For whatever reason they caught me last month and said all my images needed to be converted. Fair enough. This month my designers had 66 rbg images which I converted and updated the links. BUT the printer said their is still 739 rbg color files in the document. I know its not the images.

How to I set Indesign to only use CMYK when creating text, color boxes and so on. Every red peice of text is in rgb, along with every other color but black. SAVE ME!

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:19:47 +0000

@GregH: The answer to that is complicated. I almost always import RGB images into InDesign and then convert them to CMYK as part of the PDF Export process (using Convert to Destination, Preserve Numbers). However, if I’m working with a output provider (printer) who is color mgmt savvy and can deal with RGB images, then sending them PDF/X-3 (with RGB managed images) is often a good option.

By: Greg H

Greg H — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:26:31 +0000

OK, but what about images? Do I have to convert all images placed in InDesign (or even Quark.. *cough, cough*) to CMYK when I am sending a high-resolution PDF? Any help or experience with this would help.

By: Jennie

Jennie — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:03:42 +0000

This discussion brings to mind one of my “can’t live without it” apps. Art Director’s Toolkit. It does wonders with “equivalencies”…I just clicked on the IDCS3 icon and got the color results in Pantone solid coated (choose your library), RGB, HSB, Lab, Hex, and CMYK. I think the Mac version is around $40 and the Windows version is around $30.

This script will do wonders for working in the mixed program world that I’m in! I really do not like Mr. Gates stuff…but I’m stuck with people who use it!

By: Martin Braun

Martin Braun — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 08:31:52 +0000

@David: OK, I overshot the mark… I myself use CMYKs most time. But I use RGB too, and it is no problem, as long as I understand the colormanagement workflow.

In older days we pick colors out of color books all the time, and we were accustomed that these were round numbers. But to day colors become more versatile…

By: Eugene

Eugene — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:55:48 +0000

@David: Well I thought as much, but lends to the point you made to Bob, that on conversion they could be out of gamut and cause radical change. And as it’s an Ink “Manager” one might think that it would “Manage” the RGB and say things like “Oh, I see some RGB here, would you like to just convert those to CMYK inks all the time?” or at least give the option to convert all RGB to CMYK before output, then previewing in Overprint or Separations would at least show the change, would it not?

@Myself and just rambling: Important thing is, thatI always try not to have RGB swatches in the Swatches Panel. The copying from word is the biggest culprit.

I would like the chance though to map those colours, like RGB that come from Word, to CMYK swatches, like the blue in hyperlinks, forever coming in and I’m forever deleting it, and then choosing a swatch to replace it.

Perhaps what I’m after is a “Swatch Manager”?

Anyway, it’s all here nor there, it can’t do it, so no point in whining about it.

By: Bob Levine

Bob Levine — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:25:28 +0000

@David: Exactly…which is why you’d convert them to CMYK in InDesign BEFORE outputting.

Anyway…I see I’ve now contributed my first “controversial” post.