[Scribus] Blue or Purple?

[Craig Ringer]

On Sun, 2005-08-28 at 22:26 -0400, Ciro Soto wrote:
> I have a basic question (and I disclaim my novice status as well)
> 
> I created my first book cover with Scribus1.3.0. and exported it to pdf.
> I went to a printing store (Kinkos in US) and my beautiful blue cover
> looks purple!!  The person in the store told me they use CMYK printers
> and that it could be the problem.

Especially if you used a very vibrant blue, that's quite likely. CMYK
printers cannot output all RGB colours; similarly RGB displays cannot
display all colours that CMYK printers can print. A key term here is
"gamut", which it may be worth reading up on.

I posted some detail on this recently; you might want to check out the
archives.

Just be glad it didn't make it to print. Recently, one of the users here
accidentally disabled their Photoshop colour settings, and ended up
working in an uncorrected RGB space. As a result we sent a beautiful
clear blue background image to the printer - which came out muddy
purple. Thankfully, it wasn't on the front page, since I work for a
newspaper with a circulation of >50,000 copies/week.

> So... how do I make Scribus create  CMYK colors in the exported pdf file?

Christoph has provided links to the appropriate documentation for that.

Note that using CMYK colour won't solve the problem if you're trying to
use a colour that doesn't exist in the CMYK space. You'll simply need to
pick another colour, unless your printer can use 4+1spot colour printing
to print your special blue using a pre-made ink spot colour. If you're
using a basic print shop or doing a small run, this is very unlikely.

Speaking of spot colours, it's rather exciting to see the spot colour
support Franz has added to 1.3cvs, and the work on supporting native
colours in different colour spaces.

If you get colour management set up (and you do need to understand that
its benefits may be limited without a colour profile for your target
printer and for your monitor), you may be able to use Scribus's gamut
warning feature to highlight areas that might not print accurately.

--
Craig Ringer