ICC Profiles

[Jon Davies]

I have imported and installed two ICC profiles from a print company - one is for paper, the other for canvas. The print company requires files in RGB. The paper profile shows up in my list of RGB profiles but the canvas profile is in my CMYK list. The print company say they've never seen this before. Looking for advice on how to fix please. Windows 11. Thanks.

[walt.farrell]

Are the profiles publicly available, and if so can you provide pointers to them?

[Jon Davies]

Thanks Walt, yes they are - Downloads | Prodigi - you'll find them near the bottom of this page in a drop-down box. The two in question are "Enhanced Matt Art paper" and "Standard Canvas". 

[David in Яuislip]

Looking with a hex editor:
prodigi-standard-canvas-400gsm-sc.icc
prtrCMYKLab

prodigi-enhanced-matt-art-paper-200gsm-ema.icc
prtrRGB Lab

[Callum]

Hi Jon,

I'm also seeing what David has mentioned above the canvas colour profile is CMYK where as the matt art paper profile is RGB. It seems odd that the printing company wouldn't have seen this before as it looks as though we are installing the profiles correctly.

Thanks
C

[lacerto]

4 hours ago, Jon Davies said:

The print company requires files in RGB. The paper profile shows up in my list of RGB profiles but the canvas profile is in my CMYK list.

It is not necessarily a conflict since if e.g. PDF/X-4 based export method is used in context of Adobe environment, all elements and color definitions can be RGB based yet the document can be targeted to a CMYK device. This cannot necessarily be done in Affinity apps that would convert all native colors (texts and shapes) to target CMYK at export time, even when using PDF/X-3 or PDF/X-4 methods that would allow colors to be left in RGB color space. But if you only include placed RGB images in your document, these would be left in RGB color space and you could use this method.

I have no idea how strict the Print API of Prodigi is (and whether their profiles are meant to be used in context of non-Prodigi based productions) but I would at least ask the printer to specify if they need to have the print PDF in a specific standard (like PDF/X-4), or if it could be produced in some other way, e.g. just in sRGB color space, without the printer target.

[Jon Davies]

Thanks everybody, that's all useful and much appreciated. I'll take it up with Prodigi again.