kahheng said:Nic you're absolutely spot on. However, lots of mags (even those with in-house separation) here tend to want the photographer to supply CMYK tiffs. Go figure. I keep telling them that conversion to 4 colour should be done on their end for best results to no avail. Most of the time is because the separators they use do not want the hassle of having to convert the RGB files themselves - yes it is either pure laziness, or incompetence, or ignorance, or whatever to 'sub' this impt step to the image provider; and the client has a tendency to believe the separator more than the creatives since the assumption is that the separator "ought to know better because they are the separation experts" ;-)
A very experienced di friend agrees with me that that's true of quite a lot of the clients he works with here too. Hence, a 'general purpose' CMYK file and a proof is about as good a real world way of working as can be had to suit the client's way of working. Surely I am not going to piss off the client just because I think I know better ;-)
Even FINAL sharpening should ideally be done ONLY when the picture has been cropped to size after layout, but it's also not done this way here nearly all the time.
There are lots of cart-before-the-horse workflows to negotiate in the real world. I wished I had more enlightened clients like yours. But it is a lot better here these days already than even just five short years ago.
Hey kahheng,
I totally agree with you on the part that some local mags need CMYK files from photogs, that really explains the many color shifts in publications.
Profiles aside, I must apologise for my harsh tone in the earlier post to mattlock. *i owe you a coffee* I am really just angry with the state of the industry here. If we want to go to first class creative hub, these problems must be addressed first.
Gamut Labs exist for a simple reason, to make workflows seamless and in tune with current technologies. Maybe you are right about me and my bunch of photog friends being lucky to have the mags doing the "aRGB+Color Proof" way but we had to educate them, slowly but surely.
I will be really happy to form a little user group to push forward a setup of workflow guidelines we all can use here at the meantime setting up the correct workflows for design houses.
It's time we stop bitching about it and do something about it.
I have managed to turned a little humble printshop to a WYSIWYG bureau because I believe it can be done, RGB or CMYK, no problems.
Let's up the standards, starting with ourselves, making sure we get our workflows color-calibrated so we can say we have done our part.
I have pm the moderator and propose that we can do a sticky primer (to be updated whenever there is new techonology) about the various workflows so that we move forward together.
I can't do this alone as I do have limited knowledge only. Anyone with me on this?
Cheers,
nic