Re: [Gimp-user] Printing Color Managment

[Jehan Pagès <jehan marmottard gmail com>]

Hi,

On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 1:45 AM, Lowell PBS4U <pbs4u hotmail com> wrote:

On the Argyllcms list Gerhard Fuernkranz wrote
     “Btw, regarding gimp, I remember that in the past old versions of the gimp print plug-in did fiddle with the colors            during printing, i.e. the DeviceRGB numbers sent to the printer did not match the RGB numbers in gimp's working space. I don't know, however, whether this still applies to recent versions.”

So I thought I'd answer this question, with your help. Does Gimp still “fiddle with the colors during printing”?

Actually I think the problem you are refering to is more that printers do not use RGB at all. The most common color space for printers is CMYK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK_color_model

RGB on the other hand is done for screen display. And so the answer is that unfortunately there is still no CMYK support in GIMP. You can't create a CMYK image in GIMP. This means that when you send the RGB image to your printer, a conversion is done to the other color space, but this conversion is not perfect (basically the result will change with the material).

So that means that GIMP is good for all work made to stay on screen (web, animation, video, etc.), but less for printed work.

Note that for printed work, even if you have a software with CMYK support, your screen is still RGB (so now the conversion is done on display, same problem), and if your printer is not well calibrated, it may still be different from what a professional printer will print. That means that having CMYK support is a start, but that is only one single link in a bigger chain of failure.

That also means that it is a problematic for professionals designers or alike, who will also afford additional material and/or effort to calibrate their screen, scanner, printer, etc. For most basic users, this support is not as useful in reality as most people have badly calibrated material.

But yes, that would still be good when GIMP will support CMYK.

Jehan

PbS4U hotmail com

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