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ISO Coated v2 300%“ (ECI)


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Can some printing wizard please tell me if this profile is equivalent to any of the present profiles shipping with AD or if I have to download it?

I don´t want to spam my system and I´m trying hard to get an overview about these printing demands.

 

AD has FOGRA 27,28,29.39

but this profile seems to be FOGRA 51/52, is there any reason for not including it? As far as I understand it it´s the modern version of some other of the previously listed.

 

Thanks in advance! 

 

 

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Does Standard ISO Profile mean generic CMYK (I guess no)?

 

So can I use that Standard ISO Profile (is it one of the ones shipping with AD?) and the 300% Ink Coverage is maintained by the printer itself?

 

 

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There is a ISO standard for offset printing (ISO 12647-2) concerning optimal color space and reproduction in industrial printing. Because there are different ways to correctly reproduce a RGB color in CMYK color space, there are different ways to convert RGB colors into CMYK colors. Especially the composition of "black" differs widely in coated FORGRA and ISO coated.

If you convert a RGB image into CMYK using ISO coated v2 300, the profile guarantees, that ink coverage won't exceed 300 %, what is very important for different printing processes. For example all online print companies in Germany strictly demand not to exceed 300 % ink coverage and strongly recommend the use of ISO coated v2 300.

But attention: If you convert an image into this profile and you continue editing the image (modifying contrast, exposure, brightness and so on), the result probably will no longer match the profile's goals and conditions. For example pushing up picture saturation or contrast will very fast end up in a ink coverage of 350 to 400 %, what will be quite crucial for offset printing.

Please excuse me for not knowing the precise english terminology of these circumstances. I hope, it is understandable nevertheless.

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I´m confused because you start of with ISO 12647-2

Are FOGRA and ISO coated both part of the ISO? Seems so

 

in AD I have

Coated FOGRA27 ISO 12647-2:2004

Coated FOGRA39 ISO 12647-2:2004

Coated GRACoL 2006 ISO 12647-2:2004

Uncoated FOGRA29 ISO 124647-2:2004

Uncoated FOGRA28 ISO 124647-2:2004

- none of them matches the ISO Coated v2 300, right?
 
Now assuming that FOGRA 51/52 (apparently from 2015) are the recent versions of (some) of the above mentioned, why aren´t they included? 
 
If I work in a document in the ISO coated V3 300 the colors that exceed 300% ink coverage would be clipped, wound´t they? So I only have to be careful when not working in the output color space (which might happen though).

 

Lot´s of question marks here on my end still....

 

As for your assumption about (cheap) german online print shops, your spot on (v) 

 

 

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I think, a forum like this us definitely not the place to discuss color profiling theories in depth. The CMYK profiles reflect different print production processes and there are no colors "clipped". What happens, is a differnet treatment of black. You can't simply convert RGB to CMYK. You could, if converting RGB to CMY would be possible, but it isn't: Black would result in a dirty "blackish" brown and small black typo would have heavy quality issues, because the black color must be composed of the 3 other print inks. Therefore, and out of many other reasons, a 4th color, black, was added to the offset printing process. What means, you can't any longer convert RGB to CMYK mathematically. The 4th color prevents this "effectively". The solution is, to translate RGB into CMYK by using very sophisticated color profiles. The main difference, among others, is the treatment of the color black. If you have a color using C, M and Y, you may print this, but you may as well reduce the amount of each of these colors and use a certain amout of black(grey) instead. This is definitely no quality issue ("clipping", as you call it) but a necessity of the technical printing process (colors, paper, prining speed and much, much more.

If the creator of a dokument has no idea about these things, I would strongly advise, to use RGB color space with sRGB and leave the color conversion to a printing professional, who is able to handle CMYK profiles.

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Yeah I know that CMYK and RGB are not matching 1:1 and additive and subtractive mixing ...

 

Well maybe you don´t call it clipping, anyway, when you work in a certain color profile this profile does not allow you to use colors outside of it´s profile so when I´m working in ISO Coated V2 300 it should only allow me to use colors that are part of this profile and thus are printable by compatible printers right?

 

I don´t ask for an explanation how you get to the tone curves or conversion processes as you´re describing, I just want to use the software and want to know what I´m doing thus I think this forum is the perfekt place for that. And as the 1757 Views of the other SoftProofing topic show, color management is still an issue that is of a certain interest to many.

 

If anyone has knowledge about the usage of the new FOGRA standards or the equivalents to the profiles shipping with AD...please give me some insights.

 

in AD I have

Coated FOGRA27 ISO 12647-2:2004 (FOGRA 27 seems to be replaced by FOGRA 39)

Coated FOGRA39 ISO 12647-2:2004 

>> and ISO Coated V2 300% as well as ISO Coated V2 330% are part of FOGRA 39

 

>>> now finally, how can I make sure that ink coverage is only 300% when I´m in FOGRA 39/ converting to FOGRA 39?

330% and 300% both seem to be version of FOGRA 39

(actually seems like ISO Coated v2 isn´t really part of FOGRA 39, they´re different, just based on the same measurements but different in terms of reproduction)

​Anyway, can I make sure I don´t exceed the 330% coverage limit using FOGRA 39 as well?

 
 

Now assuming that FOGRA 51/52 (apparently from 2015) are the recent versions of (some) of the above mentioned, why aren´t they included? (is it because they are still in beta?)

 

just found out that FOGRA 51 is supposed to replace ISO Coated v2 (and thus replace FOGRA 39, who does this numbering???! 27,39,51 -very intuitive)

 

 

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Intuitive? Just as I said: Color management is no toy but a science.

Normally you ask your offset printing company, which profile you should use to fullfil its purpose.

Use your RGB profiles consequently, and, when finished, export your PDF using the intende CMYK profile ad a output intent and advise your application to delete all internally used profils. A print PDF should only have an output intent and no profiles appended to the included images.

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I have no idea if this will help clarify anything but according to The new Fogra 51 and 52 profiles web page, the 51/52 profiles have been developed to compensate for the effects of larger amounts of optical brightening agents (OBA's) in print papers vs. proof papers that cause errors in the Fogra proofing process.

 

This is a very recent development, according to that source not out of beta testing until the end of last year. Implementing it requires both software & hardware upgrades for printers developing proofing profiles (if that is the right terminology) but how it would affect end users or those creating their own custom profiles for their own printers is something I am clueless about.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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Science doesn´t actually rectify this confusion in any way IMO  :blink:

Actually I find it quite interesting, it´s just very confusing because most answers in forums (not this particular one) are confusing, misleading or just "if you don´t know it, don´t do it" which seems like the most absurd answer given to someone asking for explanations which always leeds me to the question if one does not want to share knowledge, why is he/ she around in a forum.

 

Yeah I can also just download the ISO Coated v2 300% but I want to know what I´m doing instead of just doing it in some way.

So thanks for your straight forward advices but I´d still like to know about the color spaces mentioned above.

 

But also back into AD:

Say I´ve got a document in ProPhoto, containing Text und images

I export it to CMYK ISO Coated v2 300 (previously downloaded)

When I choose a profile for export but uncheck "embed profile" does this mean the ProPhoto document get´s converted into ISO Coated v2 300, but the profile is not embedded so it has to be reassigned when opened again?
 
Flyeralarm which I took as an example to get into printing demands wants pictures in AdobeRGB
http://www.flyeralarm.com/blog/de/druckfaehiges-pdf-mit-scribus-1-4-4-erstellen/, but I can´t find a section in PDF Export > More where I can select different color profiles for images. Does AD just offer the option to rasterize the images and then convert them to the same color space as the entire PDF?
 
Yeah RC-R, as an example Flyeralarm still wants FOGRA 27 and not 39 for some things so apparently these adoptions take time so that might be the answer to that question.

 

 

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Depending on their workflow, printing services use different profiles. You should respect them.

If your document contains correctly profiled RGB images, this is no problem: If you export the document to OPDF choose "Iso coated v2 300 (ECI)" as profile/output intent and "Don’t include profiles". Doing so, all will be well.

If a different printer uses a different profile, export the PDF again using these values.This workflow is based on RGB and it is called "late binding". (That should answer your question. Don’t convert your ProPhoto tagged images. Choose the conversion profile during output. This is the professional workflow allowed by InDesign. Wether it is possible in AF Designer can be easily explored. I haven’t done it yet, because Affinity Designer has too many gaps and hurdles in professional use.)

If you convert the images to CMYK before placing them in your layout, you have to do this again, when/if you change to a printing service using a different profiling or different printing paper or … This workflow is called "early binding" and needs much more work and caution.

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I think what mac_heibu is saying about color management being a science is that it is confusing because it is the result of the practical application of a considerable amount of specialized scientific knowledge most of us don't have.

 

After all, the relevance of mathematical concepts like three dimensional profile connection space transforms are not easy to explain in a few words -- unless one already has some knowledge of mathematical spaces it is just going to sound like gibberish. The same is true for subjects like the physical properties of light or the human physiological & psychological perception of it, to say nothing of the diverse practical limitations & characteristics of the various devices & substances we use to print & display our work.

 

So it isn't a question of not wanting to share knowledge, it is that there is vastly more of it than can be covered in forums like this one, or even in dozens of online articles.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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I only partially respect this difference of standards because either the printshop is a bit outdated or the FOGRA people are a bit to fast with changing profiles so that we currently have a delta of two versions that are skipped which is not really ideal.

 

Would it be all good if I´d include the profile? Would it only make a difference in file size or also in any other regard?

 

As late and early binding are concerned, when I talked about working in ISO coated v2 300 as a document profile from the beginning on, that would be early binding right? I can see the big disadvantage of this method for changing printing/ output services but I also previously said that there would be the advantage that one just can´t exceed the printers gamut, right, or what´s the advantage of this process?

"Well maybe you don´t call it clipping, anyway, when you work in a certain color profile this profile does not allow you to use colors outside of it´s profile so when I´m working in ISO Coated V2 300 it should only allow me to use colors that are part of this profile and thus are printable by compatible printers right?"

 

More universally I´d choose a large gamut ProPhoto profile, use a ISO Coated v2 300 Soft proof adjustment (which I disable before export) and export the document as PDF into ISO Coated v2 300, late binding, right?

 

Yeah it seems to like AD does not have to option to use different profiles for embedded pictures yet....

 

 

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With no word I talked about limited colorspace in CMYK. This is one point, but definitely not the crucial one. The most important problem is, how RGB will be translated into CMYK geberally. And this doesn't touch the colors outside the color space at sll, but every single color within the reproduceable color range. Just as I said: A single color can be represented with literally hundreds, thousands of different values – just by replacing common color values of C, M Y (partially) through a K value. How this is managed, depends on the printing workflow. And without standing at the printing machine and without being a highly qualified print specialist, you certainly will understand – nothing of the needs of this process.

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ok so what´s the difference advantage of not embedding the color profile and just converting to it or converting to it AND embedding it (1st question)

 

what´s the advantage of early binding?

Is the process I described for late binding correct?

 

The are the question everyone should be able to understand without standing next to a printing machine, right? 

 

 

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When you edit a profiled CMYK image, it is highly probable to violate the profiles preferences. Think, you have a part of the image with exact 300% ink coverage and you put another objekt into it using a drop shadow. In this case you suddenly have an ink coverage, which is way to high. If you tell your printing servive, that this image has ISO coated v2 300, you are simply telling not the truth: Yes, the image my have this profile, but the content of the image definitely doesn't!

The profile doesn't prevent you from making heavy mistakes!

If you want to make edits in an early state, the only way, which makes sense, is to perform these edits in RGB, using softproof to control color behavior, and afterward(!) converting the image to CMYK. In this case, the conversion process respects the necessities of your profile. "Late binding" means, to convert to CMYK as late as possible – best, during output to Print-PDF. Thus, you source data remains as untouched as possible and the "sense" of your profile is maintained.

You can try all this by yourself, highly comfortable with InDesign, Photoshop or Acrobat. But even in Affinity it is possible:

Convert an image into ISO coated 300% profile and you should not find any part of the image with a higher ink coverage. Now perform some edits (more contrast and saturation for example) and the same parts of the image again (for example using the color picker).

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  • 3 years later...

Additionally to mac_heibu's link also this site (deutsch + English) offers in its section "PDF Know-How" various resources about PDf and profiles.

https://www.pdflib.com/de/pdf-know-how/pdfx-ausgabebedingungen/

There this output intent (Ausgabgabebedingungen) profile info might interest you:

  • PSOcoated_v3.icc
    (ISO 12647-2:2013)
  • PSOuncoated_v3_FOGRA52.icc
    (ISO 12647-2:2013)
     
  • Die folgenden älteren Standards sind immer noch weiter verbreitet als die neueren oben:
  • ISOcoated_v2_eci.icc – (FOGRA39L, ISO 12647-2:2004)
  • ISOcoated_v2_300_eci.icc – (FOGRA39L, ISO 12647-2:2004, 300% maximale Flächendeckung)

These (newer) PSO profiles are here:   http://www.eci.org/de/downloads

p.s.: the old (2001) but still very informative PDF-Bibel (deutsch, 600 S.) of Olaf Drümmer/Thomas Merz used to be available as free PDF download at pdflib.com
Meanwhile it appears not to be there anymore but can be downloaded at 
https://vdocuments.mx/download/die-postscript-pdf-bibel

 

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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