Colour integrity

[Ducati]

Hi

I am using Designer to create digital artwork to sell online. If this sounds impressive, don't be misled, I am a complete novice! In the last month I have moved from Gimp - Inkspace - Krita to here, and am learning as I go. I have done a lot of research into how to maintain colour integrity in my work, but am still struggling to make a final decision on my workflow. I could really use some advice. I understand RGB & CMYK, at least enough to know RGB=device and CMYK=print. At least traditionally, although nowadays most print companies should accept RGB...

My customer base is generalised as a bunch of people who know very little about digital files - might even struggle to unzip something - so they really don't want to be bothered with decisions regarding file type or colour profiles. For this reason, most of the other sellers just design in RGB (to get the best colours I guess) and embed the profile in the finished files. Most designs are supplied in a variety of file types (usually JPG, PDF, PNG) and a variety of sizes (so the customer can just pick the size format they need). The customer might print the artwork at home on their 20 year old printer  or (hopefully!) they will send it to some kind of professional to print. This is more likely to be a Whitewall/Jessops/Staples kinda place than a high end bespoke printing service. 

So I have no way of knowing how or where it will be printed. What I need to avoid is any significant change in colour from when the customer viewed the image on their device (where it is shown as a jpg) to when they print it. For this reason I think (happy to be persuaded otherwise!) that I have decided to do end to end CMYK. I'd rather limit the scope of my artwork and set good exceptions.

BUT, I am not sure how to actually achieve this in AD. I have set my colour profiles as shown. My questions are:

1. Do I need to limit my selection of colours when I am designing? I think I am OK to use the colour wheel, because the colours available change to only offer me CMYK values when I select the CMYK profile at creation. What about the Swatches - should I only select from the CMYK (pantone) palettes? What about Styles, are they 'safe'?

2. What ICC profile should I use to export. Doc? sRGB? One of the CMYK ones...my customers might be anywhere in the world, so hard to pick one.

3. Do I have to be careful about black? I keep reading about the dangers of picking the wrong black, but am not sure how to achieve/avoid that.

I'm grateful for your time in reading my blurb and would really like to hear your advice.

Thanks so much!

K

 

 

[kaffeeundsalz]

3 hours ago, Ducati said:

What I need to avoid is any significant change in colour from when the customer viewed the image on their device (where it is shown as a jpg) to when they print it.

Good luck with that. Between downloading and printing, people have so many opportunities to mess up color that it's entirely impossible to control. And they WILL mess it up, unless of course they're experienced in color management. Which they aren't.

If you know that your designs will get printed, it's a good idea to stick with CMYK, but that's basically it. And again, that does in no way guarantee you any color fidelity.

[Ducati]

OK, thanks. I appreciate the response.