Colour profiles

[Catherine M Evans]

In Affinity Designer & Publisher, what do all the various colour profiles mean, and how do I choose which one to use?

I have searched and searched and found lots of articles and videos about colour management, but I cannot find any layman's information on choosing a profile when setting up a document. There is a lot of detailed information about RGB/CMYK (which I pretty much understand), monitor colours, colourometers (or something like that!) etc, but as interesting as that detail is, I am just finding it overwhelming when all I want to know is how to choose the settings that would be best for my particular projects.

Generally I create graphics and documents for printing, both on my own basic home printer and for professional printing.

E.g. I have created graphics for books that I have self-published on amazon (for kindle and print paperback), and I am currently creating graphics to sell as digital downloads on Etsy - these would be printed by the buyer, either on their own home printer or possibly by a professional printing company. So my main aim is to create graphics that when printed will match the online pictures reasonably closely, and deliver a high quality end-product.

Many apologies if I've missed the answers I need somewhere else in this forum! And thanks for taking the time to read this.

Catherine

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, Catherine M Evans said:

... Generally I create graphics and documents for printing, both on my own basic home printer and for professional printing.

Well the most common widely used color profile, as you may already have read elsewhere about color management, is sRGB. That one offers a color spectrum (gamut) most monitor (screen) devices support and are capable of showing up (no matter if common computer screens, smartphones, tablets, the Web browsers etc.).

For home printing with casual home printers (Canon, Epson ink printers etc.) those printers printer drivers usually handle a right conversion from the sRGB -> to -> CMYK color spectum, meaning your Affinity document when setup as an sRGB profile document, will be mostly treated correctly by home printers then and printed due to their drivers CMYK color auto-conversion. -- In case of some better home or photo printer, or as with professional printers and printing services, these mostly assume a documents color data to be defined in a CMYK color space (gamut), thus a Affinity document setup to use a CMYK profile.

 

[Chris26]

2 hours ago, Catherine M Evans said:

Generally I create graphics and documents for printing, both on my own basic home printer and for professional printing.

Home Printer:  Always use an RGB profile, if you have a 6 ink or above printer then it can handle Adobe RGB 16 bit.  If it is a cheap printer then stick with s'RGB always.  If uploading to a digital website where others might print your works, then stay in RGB, never convert to CMYK or assign CMYK.   I can give you all the reasons behind this, but I want to keep this short and simple for you at the moment.  Hope this helps.  ALL home printers, even 9 ink printers have to have images in RGB, the printer does the conversion very successfully to its CMYK, you do not have to bother with that.  The only other thing is make sure you have a colour managed routine, if you have specific paper profiles with your printer and you have that particular paper then do not forget to assign it.  This is all for now, any questions please ask away..

 

As far as sending your work to a professional printer always ask him for an ICC profile so that you may softproof your image with the colour profile that he will be printing.  He should send you the CMYK profile by name and hopefully you will have that profile already in affinity.  Some printers that I have used will send me their specific unique ICC profile that I can then add to my list so that I may compare (through soft proofing) my  RGB edited and finished Image with the colour profile that they will use .  

[Catherine M Evans]

Thank you so much v_kyr, BofG & Chris26 for your answers! And thank you for keeping them relatively simple for a relatively simple person like me 😄, they help a lot.

I've just realised I sent 2 screenshots of the same thing, I meant to send a screenshot of all the CMYK options (I won't do one now as I know you'll all know them inside out). 

18 hours ago, Chris26 said:

As far as sending your work to a professional printer always ask him for an ICC profile so that you may softproof your image with the colour profile that he will be printing.  He should send you the CMYK profile by name and hopefully you will have that profile already in affinity. 

So does this mean all those options, like Japan Color 2001, U.S. Web Coated etc etc?

What would be the best default CMYK profile for general use, if I choose to create something in CMYK?

And what is the difference between coated and uncoated?

Thanks again all, I'm really grateful for your help.

[Catherine M Evans]

And one more quick question, Chris26 if you have time (or anyone else, all opinions welcome!) - if I create artworks specifically to sell on Etsy, that people would download to print, what would be the best profile to use, assuming most of them would get them printed outside the home (I've read feedback like "I got it printed & framed at Walgreen" etc) or maybe online? Mostly because they can then be printed on bigger & higher quality paper.

Thanks, Catherine

[v_kyr]

Uncoated in this sense means the print media (paper) isn't gloss, matte, satin or has any other coating. Coated instead means the paper type has some coating. - Professional printer services often use their specific paper/media types and thus have and offer the right color profiles to use for paper types. - Some generic color profiles are world region standard dependent, meaning are then more common and general for print service usages in certain areas of the world (Japan Color 2001, U.S. Web Coated etc.).

[Chris26]

26 minutes ago, Catherine M Evans said:

Thank you so much v_kyr, BofG & Chris26 for your answers! And thank you for keeping them relatively simple for a relatively simple person like me 😄, they help a lot.

I've just realised I sent 2 screenshots of the same thing, I meant to send a screenshot of all the CMYK options (I won't do one now as I know you'll all know them inside out). 

So does this mean all those options, like Japan Color 2001, U.S. Web Coated etc etc?

What would be the best default CMYK profile for general use, if I choose to create something in CMYK?

And what is the difference between coated and uncoated?

Thanks again all, I'm really grateful for your help.

Hallo catherine, yes, a printer should tell you which CMYK profile he is using and then you only have to soft-proof your RGB iages with that profile to see what may need adjusting or tweaking.  I edit my RGB images, I then make a copy (because I need to keep the original with all layers in tact and the copy I willadjust specially for sending to the printer), so with the copy, I soft proof, I see that the cmyk soft proof dulls my yellows, so I brighten them up - and Send that one away.  As far as default cmyk values are concerned I never deal with these and I hope that somebody else can answer this for you.  There are many here on the forum who are experts on CMYK, I am afraid I know only the very basics - literally.

 

17 minutes ago, Catherine M Evans said:

And one more quick question, Chris26 if you have time (or anyone else, all opinions welcome!) - if I create artworks specifically to sell on Etsy, that people would download to print, what would be the best profile to use, assuming most of them would get them printed outside the home (I've read feedback like "I got it printed & framed at Walgreen" etc) or maybe online? Mostly because they can then be printed on bigger & higher quality paper.

Thanks, Catherine

The best profile to attach to your images will be the s"RGB, not adobe RGB1998.  There are no alternatives here because you will never know what home printer they are using, and neither to which printer they are sending them.  This is out of your control.  All responsible outside printers will accept images in s'RGB regardless of which CMYK print profile they use.

One last thing, all home printers, regardless of whether they are two ink or 13 ink are essentially RGB printers, not cmyk printers.  This sounds contradictory, they print with physical C M Y and black ink yes, BUT, they receive RGB data from your computer, this is what they are designed and programmed to do, receive RGB information and translate that into the 4 ink colours. Just an added note to clarify any confusion here.

[Catherine M Evans]

You're all wonderful, thank you! I really appreciate your time and patience.

Hugs to you all,

Catherine