Re: [Gimp-user] How to shrink photo, retain quality?? Business card design

[Gez <listas ohweb com ar>]

El lun, 15-02-2016 a las 10:35 -0500, Rick Strong escribió:
> As always, the best thing to do is work closely with your printer and
> give 
> them what they want.

In that case, the only program capable of producing such PDF is Scribus
(inkscape can't export CMYK PDF).
It's important to note that you don't need to convert the images using
a different application. You can create your artwork and images in RGB
and let scribus do the conversion to CMYK during the PDF export.
In Scribus, when you choose "Printer" as output for PDF, it will
convert all the assets (swatches and images) to CMYK, even when they
are RGB in your working document.
It's also important to note that different PDF and PDF/X versions allow
different color models. Some of them allow only CMYK, others allow CMYK
or RGB, and other even allow to have both, RGB and CMYK elements in the
same document.

In my experience, woring in scribus with RGB and then exporting from
PDF version 1.4 and choosing "printer" as output produces a solid PDF
that every print shop will accept without questions. 

The upcoming versions of Scribus will allow PDF/X, which is a variant
of PDF specially taylored for printing, but meanwhile the settings
offered above are fine.

Just keep in mind to set the right color profiles in the color
management section of the preferences so the conversions are properly
managed, according to the colorspace provided by your print supplier.

TL;DR:
Use Scribus, export PDF 1.4, choose "printer" as output and don't
convert stuff to CMYK, Scribus will do it for anything that is not in
the printer colorspace already.

BTW, since this is the GIMP mailing list, keep in mind that you can
produce files for print from GIMP, but you can't produce a CMYK PDF.
You can, however, produce a CMYK TIFF file with GIMP and the Separate+
Plugin that should be acceptable for printing (unless it has a lot of
small text, in which case a vector format is more suitable and easier
to handle).

Gez.