[Scribus] CMYK image processing

[Hal V. Engel]

On Tuesday 21 March 2006 08:21 am, pixelnate wrote:
snip

> >> Having a fully color-managed workflow is a nice goal. But in practice,
> >> there are a lot of people who will not put a lot of effort into this
> >> since it's okay for them to work in CMYK and they are used to it. IMO
> >> it's a matter of complexity.
>
> It is also expensive to have someone set up your color workflow
> properly, and there are precious few who do it well. Where I work, the
> cheapskates I work for refuse to buy the devices so that I can set up
> the profiles for our printers and monitors, and they don't want to pay
> the very able area rep that can do it for us. So I am _the_ eyes in the
> agency where I work. All color is corrected on my monitor and approved
> by me before it goes to press. I rely on editing images in CMYK. If the
> tools don't support that, then I find tools that can. It is as simple as
> that.

Actually I think you made Craig's point here.  If you do not have the hardware 
and software to create good profiles and if you do not have a proper CM 
workflow how can you claim to be doing proper color management?  

It seems to me that your complaint is that your employer would rather 
implement a manual process that depends on your very experienced (but 
subjective) eye rather than spending a few thousand dollars on some equipment 
and software to set up an objective measurement based process.  That your 
employer trusts this to you is indeed a testament to your abilities.  But 
what happens to your employers "color management process" if you get hit by a 
truck or get a better offer from another employer?  I know that every 
employer I have worked for has tried real hard to implement processes that 
are not dependant on one individual for this very reason.

You are correct that it is non-trivial to set up a proper CM workflow.  There 
is a significant learning curve to this stuff but it is also very powerful.  
For someone to come in a set this up for a company takes a considerable 
effort and is not cheap.  On the other hand if you were to talk your employer 
into spending a few thousand dollars on hardware and software and a like 
amount on training for you and perhaps a few others you could work your way 
into a proper CM workflow over the course of perhaps 6 months with minimal 
expense.

You also said "And yes, I use the proper profiles for my image work, I am not 
a rookie."  OK where did you get your proper monitor profile if you don't 
have measurement hardware?  You seem to be contradicting yourself.  Or 
perhaps your employer is only willing to pay to have your monitor profiled 
and not others in your shop.

Even though you appear to not be aware of them there are some OSS profiling 
tools and in some ways these are a good as anything out there.  The problem 
that the developers of these tools are running into is that the measurement 
tool vendors don't yet supply "drivers" that run on OSS platforms (this is 
being worked on now).  So there are a limited number of supported measurement 
devices that will work with current OSS tools.  But if you have access to a 
supported device, for example a Spectrolino, ArgyllCMS will create world 
class printer and monitor profiles and if you want to profile cameras and/or 
scanners LPROF will create world class profiles for these devices.   Both 
apps are undergoing active development.

One more thing.  GIMP is not the only OSS image editing tool.  It is only the 
most well known.  I do however agree with you that it is not up to the task 
of doing professional level imaging work.  My point of view is that lack of 
CMYK support is only one of many issues with the current stable release.  
Other options include CinePaint and Krita both of which have the ability to 
work with high bit depth CMYK images and have good color management support.  
The GIMP developers are actively working on color management awareness for 
version 2.4 and on CMYK and high bit depth support for a later release.  So 
at some point in the forseeable future GIMP will have most of the needed 
functionality.  But I suspect that this is 6 months to a year out at this 
time.
 
>
> -End of line.   Nate
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