Linux for Designers

Anonim writes: *Almost* like in Photoshop, huh? Lets ask GIMP developers why they don't make CMYK colorspaces directly available. As I love GIMP, dear Eckhard, I believe the developers are not more than just a bunch of amateurs. And even such fabulous plugin provides only crippled functionality of what a person designing for DTP would need. BTW - Inkscape has CMYK support roadmapped in 0.50, so I think it will be ready around 2015. Meanwhile I'll make all RGB-only works in GIMP and all CMYK in PS or Scribus.

Anonymous writes: Ok, its true that Seperate+ is a workaround but it really works perfect! BTW: Professionals use RGB images in layouts not CMYK images.

Anonim writes: There is no DTP work without CMYK separations (or some other kind, like hexachrome or K+spot). If you don't need - you don't use it, thats all. If you design layouts for web pages - RGB is enough. If you put photos into a leaflet - RGB will work too (sometimes, depends on pre-press processing). However - how will you control overprint? How will you make background in the purest color you wish and see how it looks (like 50% or 100% of one of C, M or Y)? No way to have such features without working directly in CMYK. Can you imagine making any kind of beautiful color press-ready (meaning CMYK with all the overprints and pure colors)illustration diagrams with GIMP? No way, man. Yellow will turn from happy to sandy, magenta will be "dirty" at best, pure cyan - color intensive and strong - will appear as unattractive dusty greenish thing. And with this plugin all you can get is guessing or trial-error workflow type. Plugin is great, does its job perfectly. You can do 99% of any graphics you wish in GIMP with it, but world won't keep on turning without the remaining 1%. And the remaining 1% are the jobs that need to be done fast and accurate, without fiddling, reassembling the picture back and forth. And still - I'm not talking about 22-spot internationally produced leaflets with gigabytes of files in formats 99,9% people won't see during their lifespan - this is how serious printing looks sometimes, but just about simple, but professional quality printed work of any kind.

Gez writes: Anonim: Since you're not an amateur like that bunch of dorks, please code CMYK for us. Thanks in advance. Meanwhile I'll keep sending my files to the print shop every week with these pathetic tools. I kinda got used to this and (hang on) I can get pure colors and overprints right! Yes, I know, it sounds crazy, doesn't it? Man, seriously. Stop trolling and do something or just STFU and stick to PS. We can live with that. I've been using free software for my design work for the last couple of years, and it's getting better and better with each version. Of course one would like to have better tools and right now, but let's be respectful with developers. They're using their free time to give us the software.

Anonimo writes: For the best accuracy in printing a photo you need a color managed workflow, not a CMYK support. Once you have an icc profile for your camera, monitor and printer and a color managed software (like GIMP) you are done. CMYK control the amount of ink per C M Y and K, not the desidered color of the print. I mean, for printing you can work with CMYK or RGB, but for color accuracy you need to know how color management works. I use GIMP for work, and when I (rarely) need CMYK I use this plugin. Finally, official CMYK support with GIMP will come with the compete integration of babl and gegl (with other gorgeous things like higher color spaces).

Anonim writes: Me, the trolling guy again. Gez - my dear no-troll, is there any trace of your fabulous workflow online? I'm just curious of pureness of your cyan or magenta. Deepness of your rich black. Or if 0-100-100-0 red is not covered with tiny black spots. I believe I must have seen a note somewhere online, just don't remember where it was. It goes like this: "I have a seat and work few hours extra retouching separations, cause CMYK its not supported. The pain in my back and wrists, my tingling dry eyes - I call it a sense of freedom". Inkscape team just claimed they won't do full CMYK support - this isn't on roadmap or 100% official yet but it will be in some time.

Gez writes: My dear troll guy: I'm Glad you ask. First, I analize the image and see if I really need a controlled separation. Most of the times I can manage that moving the RGB colors to a safe color where it can match the output gamut and in that case I can trust in the relative colrimetric conversion purpose. But let's suppose that I really need a pure magenta solid: In that case I create a different layer (in inkscape) for the "spot" magenta, then I mask it out from the original artwork with white. I export the artwork with the blank areas as PNG, and separate them using the Separate+ plugin. I can paint the "spot" layer with black and export it as PNG and take it to gimp and multiply it on the separated magenta channel, and that's it. If I need pure red (100%magenta + 100%yellow) I can paint that "spot" layer with #ff0000 and take it to GIMP, then separate it with the decompose command (as CMY) and then multiply the resulting channels to te M-Y channels that I separated previously with Separate+ You'll probably argue that is tedious, or that it wouldn't be so easy if you have a Pantone color. Ok, maybe it's a little bit tricky and direct CMYK export would be better. I'd love that too. But it isn't a big deal. It's possible. And about the Pantone colors. If you want precise Pantone colors, you have to use spot passes. CMYK translation of Pantone Spots depend on too many factors to be considered "reliable", so I'm sure you can trust in a properly calibrated and profiled workflow and leave it to your CMS. If you don't believe me, just try this: Choose any Pantone color you want with your Adobe software. Export your CMYK file. Take the same file to two different print shops and compare the results.

Gez writes: It's me again. The no-troll. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/255376/cmyk-troll.tar.gz Here's a sample I created in a couple of minutes. I know, the cutout of the troll is totally unprofessional, but hey... It's free! :-)

100% trolled writes: Troll is pretty nifty example. I'll buy you a beer if we'll meet somewhere sometime. This is (I believe so) the illustration from a book upon dwarfs I had have as a child. However - you do it exactly in the "long way" - treating CMYK sometimes as result of conversion (troll), sometimes as a "kind of spot" (or two spots at once - like background that needs different conversion than troll itself). One can work like that, I know it well. You could do this in Scribus, this could have been even faster. You will fall in trouble only when you have to achieve some specific effects, like wide range, pure color, high detail "pro looking" illustrations, when what you have red and blach should be much more spohisticated, detailed and still editable. Anyway I'm giving up. You won. One can do what he wants with GIMP, all its just a matter of work to put in design.

Gez writes: 100% trolled: About the trool thing, I was just joking. It was an interesting conversation and I'm enjoying it. I agree that tools are not in the state they should, and working with CMYK isn't that convenient as one would expect. But I insist that it's far from being impossible, although some cases need more work than others. There is a debate about working in CMYK in the creative stage or not. The current trend seems to be working in RGB and leave the separations part to the print shop. I tend to agree, most of the designers I know doesn't know the fact that using a wrong CMYK profile is worst than sending RGB directly to the print shop and let them manage the separations, traps et all. My wife is an illustrator and she published in serveral books and magazines around the world, and I took care of the technical part. She uses Inkscape and GIMP for her illustrations, and trust me when I tell you that we got better results sending corrected RGB files than CMYK separations (we used to use Illustrator and photoshop some years ago). Sometimes you can't get in touch with the printer directly and you have to use a generic profile, and results are not always good. The same dull results you mention some comments ago (sandy yellows, dull magentas and cyans, too light or too heavy black generation) are caused by the conversion to generic profiles. You'll get exactly the same separating with Photoshop. I know that you wasn't talking about separations in the first place, but working natively in CMYK. Working natively in CMYK isn't always the best choice. Usually you can't get the same possibilities you get in RGB for complex effects. In my oppinion what it really matters is to get what you expect in the printed output. If a corrected RGB workflow gives you that (and what I'm saying here is that it does), what's the problem? Why sticking with CMYK? Just calibrate your display, use a working RGB profile that your monitor can display (working with AdobeRGB in your $ 300 monitor won't work ;-) and get a good print provider that gives you enough information about their output profile so you can choose safe colors and perform some soft proofing and that's it. You could be sending them even the RGB files directly and get good prints.

Gez writes: 100% trolled: About the trool thing, I was just joking. It was an interesting conversation and I'm enjoying it. I agree that tools are not in the state they should, and working with CMYK isn't that convenient as one would expect. But I insist that it's far from being impossible, although some cases need more work than others. There is a debate about working in CMYK in the creative stage or not. The current trend seems to be working in RGB and leave the separations part to the print shop. I tend to agree, most of the designers I know doesn't know the fact that using a wrong CMYK profile is worst than sending RGB directly to the print shop and let them manage the separations, traps et all. My wife is an illustrator and she published in serveral books and magazines around the world, and I took care of the technical part. She uses Inkscape and GIMP for her illustrations, and trust me when I tell you that we got better results sending corrected RGB files than CMYK separations (we used to use Illustrator and photoshop some years ago). Sometimes you can't get in touch with the printer directly and you have to use a generic profile, and results are not always good. The same dull results you mention some comments ago (sandy yellows, dull magentas and cyans, too light or too heavy black generation) are caused by the conversion to generic profiles. You'll get exactly the same separating with Photoshop. I know that you wasn't talking about separations in the first place, but working natively in CMYK. Working natively in CMYK isn't always the best choice. Usually you can't get the same possibilities you get in RGB for complex effects. In my oppinion what it really matters is to get what you expect in the printed output. If a corrected RGB workflow gives you that (and what I'm saying here is that it does), what's the problem? Why sticking with CMYK? Just calibrate your display, use a working RGB profile that your monitor can display (working with AdobeRGB in your $ 300 monitor won't work ;-) and get a good print provider that gives you enough information about their output profile so you can choose safe colors and perform some soft proofing and that's it. You could be sending them even the RGB files directly and get good prints.

Gez writes: ouch! I made some ugly mistakes with some verb conjugations. My spanish is way better :)

Gez writes: Eckhard: I'm following that development. Is indeed interesting and I'll love to have a color management system integrated to the OS. Anyway it is possible to do that already with Argyll (a little bit trickier, so that integrated solution will be a real time saver). I have my screens calibrated and profiled with a Pantone Eye One Display Pro 2, which works flawlessly with Argyll. I'm also using DispCalGUI for making the process easier. LProf can also be used to create profiles from printed targets, so it's already possible to have a reliable color workflow in a gnu/linux. Contrary that most people think, graphic applications like GIMP, Scribus and even Inkscape have pretty good color management options, so if your screen and devices are calibrated and if you choose the right working profiles (in my case I'm using sRGB since I don't have a high end monitor that can display a wider gamut profile and the output profiles I use for print are covered by the sRGB gamut) it is possible to have reliable color reproduction and work within predictable color parameters.

Gez writes: I've just found something interesting in the myPantone site: They recommend to work as much as possible in RGB and convert to CMYK only in the output stage. They call this approach "late binding workflow". They don't say that working with "early binding" (moving to CMYK at the beginning of the work) is wrong, but they warn about the disadvantages of having a clipped gamut as a starting point. Of course it is matter of choices, but I think it's good to keep in mind the advise of a major brand of the print world on this polemic issue.

I recently downloaded GIMP and I think I love it but am having trouble finding a good guide for it. Have you been able to find any good, clearly written guide/help/manual/tips ... for GIMP? I've been searching but no luck so far. Learning a lot just by playing with it though