Inkscape for print

karela · Postby **karela** » Thu Dec 10, 2015 4:05 am

Sorry to bring up a topic that has probably been covered, but I see a lot of very old threads and was hoping there had been a development. I have decided that THIS project is the project for which I am going to buckle down and use Inkscape from start to finish... but I just want to make sure that I am not misunderstanding something important before I get too involved.

My project is exclusively for print. SVG doesn't support CMYK, so I guess I would need to output to PDF? Except that the general consensus seems to be that this is problematic in terms of colour management. I did a quick test and indeed it is. My 100% magenta (0% everything else) turns up as 35%C, 81% M in the exported document. I feel like it is a bit silly to do all my backgrounds and gradients in photoshop and import them, which is I guess what people are doing? Or does that just end up getting double translated?

Is there currently a hack or a colour profile to implement that works (I know there have been in the past, but they seem to not be up to date)? About 75% of the work I do is for print, and 100% of the projects for which I need Inkscape are for print. I was hoping to jump off the cloud, but am starting to lose hope.

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Thu Dec 10, 2015 6:49 am

Maybe you have seen this? Tried it?

http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entr ... to-scribus

karela · Postby **karela** » Thu Dec 10, 2015 7:24 am

Thank you tylerdurden! That does clarify a lot of things. I have just one question. The article says:

"First of all, make sure your profiles are in ~/.local/share/color/icc folder. Then start Inkscape and head over to File / Document Properties (or Ctrl+Shift+D), switch to Color Management tab and pick a profile from the list:"

But I don't have any colour profiles, and I don't seem to have a folder by that name.

How do you find colour profiles? Can you download them?

I checked the ones available but when I linked to "generic CMYK profile" (for lack of a better option) and exported the svg to Scribus it showed the colours as being RGB.

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Thu Dec 10, 2015 12:19 pm

Hmmm... let's start with some basics:

Your system? ... Version of Inkscape?

Do you have any color profiles listed in the available profiles list?

: 2015-12-09_21-19-19.png (102.7 KiB) Viewed 4264 times

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Thu Dec 10, 2015 12:39 pm

related: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18359

Postby **brynn** » Thu Dec 10, 2015 3:18 pm

Wow td, you installed all those profiles? Or they come courtesy of some other program? I've never set up any color profiles, but there are 2 in my menu.

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Fri Dec 11, 2015 12:35 am

Many profiles come with scanners, printers and image editing apps. You might want to search your computer for anything *.icc

Postby **brynn** » Fri Dec 11, 2015 1:57 pm

Oh ok. Thanks td. I don't have a printer attached to this computer, or any related software, so that probably explains it. TA

karela · Postby **karela** » Thu Dec 17, 2015 1:56 am

Sorry to take so long to get back to you!

Inkscape 0.48.2 running on a Mac OS

The options are mostly "generic" (generic CMYK, generic gray, generic lab, generic rgb, generic xyz) and the only one that looks applicable is the generic cmyk.

Moini · Postby **Moini** » Thu Dec 17, 2015 2:33 am

Offtopic:
0.48.2 is a very old version, karela. If there's no specific reason for keeping a version that is > 4 years old, it's recommendable to switch to the latest Inkscape version, or at least to 0.48.5.

You can get the icc profile you need (CMYK alone won't get you anywhere, it needs to be a specific profile) either from your printing service (they will have an FAQ or something else where they say which profile they want, and sometimes offer it for download), or from http://www.color.org/resource2.xalter .

Then save it to the correct directory of your system (you can use a web search to find out which directory that is - most of the users here are on Windows or Linux, sorry).

karela · Postby **karela** » Wed Jan 06, 2016 3:23 am

Ok, back at work and still chipping away at this.

I now have 0.91 installed, I have a colour profile installed in the correct directory (as far as I can tell).

The colour profile shows up on inkscape, and I have selected it (unless I am missing something, I am attaching a screen shot to show this) BUT there is no difference to the colour on the screen (which makes things difficult since I can't "play around" with colours because they are not at all close) AND, more importantly, when I export it to scribus, the colours still all show up as RGB. Any ideas where I am going wrong?

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Wed Jan 06, 2016 3:58 am

Have you selected the profile in the CMS tab?

: 2016-01-05_12-54-56.png (71.23 KiB) Viewed 2605 times

karela · Postby **karela** » Wed Jan 06, 2016 4:32 am

No, I hadn't! Thanks! I am trying that now and can't quite figure out exactly what to do.

When I select CMS, and I choose the profile, it shows me CMYK (and A) bars with some unusual values (all decimal points- as seen in your picture).

(As a side note, It is all very "jumpy" --things are selected and unselected without my really understanding what is going on, or, for example, when I select my colour profile from the drop-down menu, my cursor is hovering over a colour bar and changes it to an unwanted colour).

Is this where I leave well enough alone, and change the colours in the CMYK tab? Because when I try to select any of the colours in CMS, it simply jumps to the A (transparency) bar and shows that it is at 255, then shows me a different colour (that I am not sure how it was selected).

When I try to select a colour in CMYK and go back to CMS to see what is going on, it shows that my profile is no longer selected. If I select the profile and go back to CMYK viewing, it shows me different values.

As well, every time I draw a new shape, do I need to select the icc profile anew? Is there no way to say that I would like the whole document to respect the profile at all times?

tylerdurden · Postby **tylerdurden** » Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:20 am

I'd select an ICC profile, then use HSL or whatever you prefer.

If you find the ICC profile is not persistent (it switches back to "none" repeatedly), see this topic:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18359

Chime back if needed...

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