Color Profiles - What I've Learned

[Merlin]

I've been making a nuisance of myself of this forum seeking advice on how to ensure the color of my prints match the color of my designs. This is particularly important to me because I want to mass produce a board game and would like it to look exactly how I designed it. According to print shops and manufacturers, CMYK at 300dpi is preferred for professional printing, so the following focuses on that requirement.

The issue I have faced is my prints are much darker than my images on screen. Notwithstanding that screens tend to be brighter than paper, this was not the issue I was trying to solve. What I needed was to solve how to improve the brightness of my design so it appeared bright on the paper. I discovered that 'soft proofing' helped me put the issue into context by playing with the various color profiles, but I did not understand what any of the listed color profiles actually meant. I tried contacting local print shops in Tampa, FL but they had no idea what an ICC color profile is (very concerning). I asked a board game manufacturer in China, and they didn't know either. Nonetheless, what was important to me was to have at least a basic understanding of what the color profiles mean so I can at least apply them with some surety that the color of prints will be close to what I want. So here's a summary, which I hope someone other than me benefits from.

By reference to the International Color Consortium (ICC) I will focus on three characterization data sets for color management found by Affinity software in my Windows 10 operating system, namely CGATS, FOGRA, and TC130 . Without writing an essay, these can be summarized as:

CGATS is registered by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and is most commonly used in USA. You can find the following ANSI registered CMYK color profiles in Affinity products.

US Web Coated (SWOP) v2 - I understand this standard is now obsolete and should not be used, despite software using it as a default.
US Web Uncoated v2 - this is for uncoated paper. Uncoated means it isn't gloss, matte, satin or any other treatment. It is probably like the multipurpose paper you might use at home.
Coated GRACoL 2006 (ISO 12647-2:2004) is suitable for Grade #1 paper, which is the highest quality white paper.
Web Coated SWOP Grade #3 Paper is a bright glossy paper similar to most magazines.
Web Coated SWOP Grade #5 Paper is a low quality paper that might be slightly dull and yellow.

FOGRA is a Germany based institute for graphic arts, and its color standards are mainly adopted in UK and Europe. The following profiles are in Affinity products:

Coated FOGRA27 (ISO 12647-2:2004) - this has been superseded by FOGRA39 so should not be used.
Web Coated FOGRA28 (ISO 12647-2:2004) for offset commercial and specialty printing with paper type 3 (coated web, 60 gsm)
Uncoated FOGRA29 (ISO 12647-2:2004) for offset commercial and specialty printing with paper type 4 (uncoated white offset, 120 gsm)
Coated FOGRA39 (ISO 12647-2:2004) represents commercial offset lithography on gloss or matte coated paper of 115 gsm.

ISO TC130 is registered by the Japan National Committee and is adopted by ICC as an international standard as it is consistent with ISO 12647-2 and -3. The following profiles are in Affinity products:

Japan Web Coated (Ad) is for sheet-fed offset printing Paper type 1, premium coated, 127.9 gsm
Japan Color 2001 Coated is for sheet-fed offset printing, with paper type 1, (coated, 105 gsm), 
Japan Color 2001 Uncoated is as above but for uncoated paper.
Japan Color 2002 Newspaper is for coldset offset printing for printing newspapers.
Japan Color 2003 Web Coated is for heat-set web offset printing,with paper type 3, (coated, 70 gsm)

[Merlin]

My conclusion is to use the CGATS (ANSI or SWOP) color profiles when soft proofing CMYK for printing in the USA, FOGRA for the rest of the World, except Japan, when you should use ISO TC130.

[TomM1]

You don’t mention if you  have calibrated your display. 

[Merlin]

Yes I have, but the purpose of my post is which color profiles to use when soft proofing for final printing production. If you blindly go to a professional printer and print hundreds of (say) business cards or flyers you might be surprised at the color output. Of course, calibrating the display is important, but that’s a whole different discussion. The difficulty I was having was how to select the correct color profile for printing, and I believe the above post addresses that... at least to my own satisfaction.

[Chul]

Thanks Merlin! That's something I've always wanted to research but hadn't found time. This explains it clearly; thanks for sharing!

[mac_heibu]

Annotation: There are no „profiles in the Affinity products“ The Affinity apps get the profiles from your operating system. And within your operating system there are some profiles installed, some not.

Normally you have to install the required profiles. Don’t rely on any recommendations. Simply use the profile, which is required for your job!

Further, I think your list may be confusing. You should always(!) use the profile, which your print company recommends. And in Germany in most cases they want and need ISOcoated_v2_eci or ISOcoated_v2_300_eci (different color tables because of different maximal ink coverage.)

Simple advice for preparing print(!) layouts:

• Make sure, that your monitor is set up/calibrated correctly (Attention: Many screens can’t be calibrated, but you can adjust colors, gamma, brightness, …). Apple has a quite effective tool for that in its „Monitors“ preferences panel).
• Use your monitor profile for your individual screen (don’t simply use sRGB, because your monitor profile describes the individual deviations from sRGB).
• If working with RGB images make sure, that they use the sRGB profile (AdobeRGB has a wider color spectrum, but this „plus" doesn’t make its way to print output). Don’t use your monitor profile for images!
• If working with CMYK images, make sure that they use the same color profile as your final print output does (to avoid CMYK to CMYK conversion)
• Use the CMYK profile, which your print provider recommends for your Publisher document and force Publisher’s output routines to convert the images into the recommended CMYK profile. (The last step isn’t really necessary, but recommended – especially, if the creator of the document isn’t definitely sure about what he is doing.)

[Merlin]

@mac_heibuRegarding ‘annotation’ I will edit my original post as that is a fair cop. But regarding the rest, I have been unsuccessful in getting printers to provide a color profile so I’ve had to research a workable solution.

[mac_heibu]

Don‘t rely on a print company, which can‘t give/name you the required color profile – never!

Or would you buy a computer, if the vendor can‘t tell you, which operating system it runs?

[Merlin]

@mac_heibuYou have to make assumptions when designing something. But if you disagree with my observations I’ll delete it. I thought I was being helpful.

[mac_heibu]

Why should you make assumptions? Your images should be RGB (what they normally are), the document profile can be changed whenever you want according to the output necessities. When you decide to print, ask the printing company for the color profile, assign it to your document and let Affinity Publisher convert the images accordingly, or, what I personally(!) think it is better for people, who are not so safe in print layout, convert the images by yourself into the correct CMYK profile and replace them in your layout.

… and please don‘t delete anything! We all are learning by taking part in these kind of discussions!

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Merlin said:

You have to make assumptions when designing something. But if you disagree with my observations I’ll delete it. I thought I was being helpful.

20 hours ago, Merlin said:

US Web Uncoated v2 - this is for uncoated paper. Uncoated means it isn't gloss, matte, satin or any other treatment. It is probably like the multipurpose paper you might use at home.
Coated GRACoL 2006 (ISO 12647-2:2004) is suitable for Grade #1 paper, which is the highest quality white paper.
Web Coated SWOP Grade #3 Paper is a bright glossy paper similar to most magazines.
Web Coated SWOP Grade #5 Paper is a low quality paper that might be slightly dull and yellow.

Yes, you have to make an assumption when starting a project without knowing the printer or paper it's printed on. So you start with any. That might fit later or not, you must not know yet, – but you must not forget to check & set that before print, as mac_heibu pointed out.

The problem is that a printer (the person) + a printing machine + a paper each of them have their own some way individually presets and behaviour sotosay. In this way any general profile is just an assumption or estimation when you consider that their descriptions are not very clear because paper does influence the print process with more or with more specific properties than those words for instance ...

• ... gloss, matte, satin or any other treatment
• ... the highest quality white paper
• ... bright glossy paper
• ... similar to most magazines
• ... paper that might be slightly dull and yellow

To compare this list with that one of a paper factory can be confusing:
http://www.mccaughanpaper.com/gpage2.html

In THAT way it is important to understand profiles (with your helpful list) AND to get the profile info from the printer. A first, estimated, default profile is standard but it is not the final decision and solution before the export of the print file. Some print services even deliver their specific profile as .icc file to get the best from your design.

 

20 hours ago, Merlin said:

FOGRA is a Germany based institute for graphic arts

Besides FOGRA in Europe also the profiles from the German initiated ECI are quite common:
http://www.eci.org/en/start

 

[SrPx]

2 hours ago, mac_heibu said:

Don‘t rely on a print company, which can‘t give/name you the required color profile – never!

Guilty of doing that, as I am usually not the one to decide what print company use... In those cases I try to get in contact with the company. Not always possible... If anything, I'd prefer to do some checks on my own to see that my rgb tones are not to out of a printable spectrum checking with several usual profiles, but providing it as RGB, even if they ask for "CMYK images" as a  general rule, once I'm able to talk to them, so to provide as RGB, if they wont tell me their CMYK profile. At least, I know their RIP will do a better job in converting than if I convert it to a random CMYK profile, and then they convert from a CMYK profile to another. Been there and can get horrible....

[Kateberl]

Thank you for the info! I just realized I put all the pictures for print in a wrong CMYK (the default US Web coated) and I’m going to print a catalog in Germany. Would it be ok to put them back to RGB, edit the brightness and saturation and bring them back to a good CMYK profile? Or the color information is lost forever ? I just did too many edits already in CMYK, tonns of work… thanks in advance :)

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Kateberl said:

Would it be ok to put them back to RGB, edit the brightness and saturation and bring them back to a good CMYK profile?

There wouldn't be an advantage. Roughly said, every conversion influences the colours in a destructive way, means it "burns" the colour modifications into the file, while a switch between CMYK and RGB (or vice versa) may result in more colour profile adjustment than between two RGB or two CMYK profiles. Instead you could continue with the current profile(s), and, if not created yet, also create the layout document (e.g. APub) with the same profile. Then, for export, change the document profile to the one requested by the printer and choose "Assign" in the "Document Setup" > "Colour" + leave "as document" in the export options.

For future projects it appears to be more useful / flexible to keep the images in their initial colour space (usually RGB). Some users prefer to create the layout document in RGB, too, and convert to CMYK on export only. It is even possible to maintain RGB images + profiles in an exported CMYK .pdf and leave the conversion to the printer respectively to the prepress process. So, there is no just 1 right way while the various steps and possible colour space + profile + convert/assign combinations should be coordinated with each other.