CMYK VS. RGB Preview on Mac
egenfeldt (5 pencils) | Wed, 2008-04-09 15:05Hi All,
I been fighting the old RGB vs. CMYK war. I am converting a number of screenshots from rgb to cmyk and in the process changing them from .png to .tif with 300 dpi & 16 bits (I know this is cheating but nevertheless). I do this by making a new canvas with CMYK, 300 DPI & eurocated v2 color profile (which my print shop uses). I then drag the image from the rgb one over to the new canvas.
So this looks good in PSD (with view --> proof setup, working CMYK & proof colors turned on). but when I preview on my mac from the finder or the image viewer I get the washed-out look. When I see it in PSD it looks good, but the question is? What will my pic look like printed - the washed out or the cmyk-preview in PSD .
Might it be that it in previewer 'remebers' the rgb settings and misinterprete somehow which makes it look washed out?
In advance thanks for any help.
Best,
Simon
Commenting on this Forum topic is closed.
The preview image is 8bit in most cases, hence the image degradation there.
Why not just convert the file to CMYK? Why paste it into a new file? Seems like a wasted step.
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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Dirt and Rust
The reason it looks good in Photoshop and not in any of your other viewers is that you've probably applied, converted to or saved the image with a color profile.
The conversion from RGB to CMYK nearly always introduces a "gray/washed out" look to the colors. Any color adjustments really need to be made after the CMYK conversion as far as fine-tuning goes - or at the very least, with CMYK preview turned on in PS.
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The Photoshop preview is correct, pay no mind to the Finder preview.
Adobe simply needs to create the mac icon using the profile of the systems monitor, or a generic sRGB profile. To tell the truth, I'm at a loss to describe exactly how they create the icon, but it certainly could be better.
Be sure your inkjet proofer is set to receive EUROCOATEDv2 and you'll be in good shape.
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