[Scribus] How do I do color correction

[Dwain Alford]

i have been mystified by color management for years.  all of this profiling
for different papers, inks, printers.  well at last i have come upon a
system that works for me and it didn't cost any money profiling any hardware
of for paper.

most non postscript printers render i rgb, regardless of how many ink
cartridges you have to install.  all of this monitor calibration i have
found is bunk as well.  and as for paper, well, i use what ever i want and
still get a good print with the expected results of ink absorption with
certain papers and the finish of the paper (read: photo).

i have an epson stylus photo 1200.  it has a black cartridge and a 6 color
color cartridge. i have fought with getting what is on the screen to the
paper since i have had it, but i finally figured it out.

now i am on a windows os, so your installed profiles may be different, but i
do believe that the srgb color space (same as srgb iec61966-2.1) is
available on all operating systems.  one other note, kodak and hp offer a
srgb iec61966-2.1.  in fact, on my system, the srgb color space profile is
from hp and the srgb profile is from kodak to be used in a d65 monitor set
up with a gama of roughly 1.8.

when available i set my graphics software (all of them) to srgb
iec61966-2.1for the rgb color space.  i use the swop v2 setting for
cmyk (this setting
depends on the color profile of your commercial printer, match it and you're
in heaven, nirvana, elysian fields or any other good place you want to be).
inkscape uses a flavor of srgb iec61999-2.1.

now for the hardware.  i set my printer to the srgb color space profile.
now you can go to http://www.color.org and down load icc profiles.  there
you will find the srgb profile mentioned above one with and one without
black point settings.  read the difference between the two.  i have used
them both, but for the hardware i have i stick with the srgb color space
profile.

my microtek 5900 scanner is set to srgb iec6199-2.1 and so is my monitor,
but the colors are sometimes off, what to do, what to do?

here comes the tricky part, the monitor settings.  i have seen them all.
some go to yellow side (d50) and some go to the blue (d93); but as for me, i
want a neutral setup.  i took the chance one day and did the user settings
to adjust my monitor.

now i come from a photographic background and understand a little about
color and color correction.  since i wanted a neutral setup that would
render a print as close to what i had on my monitor i had to make my monitor
neutral, thus the need for the user defined color settings.

i took a deep breath and set the r,g & b to 50%, and made a print.  now
remember all of my software and hardware carry the same srgb and cmyk color
profiles.  when i viewed the print, it was like a miracle, but it didn't
match my monitor.  the print was lighter than my monitor.  i saw all of the
detail and color that i was supposed to, the brightness and contrast in the
print was where i wanted it, but it didn't match my monitor.  so i turned up
the brightness on my monitor to match, as closely as possible, the density
of the print.

viola!  i was in synch hardware and software wise for the first time since
1999.  but did it really work outside my environment?  i write a basic
computer skill column for a local weekly newspaper.  i sent them a black and
white print.  looked like it did on my monitor.  but what about color?  i
had done some business graphics for my nephew's business.  we made his
business card and had it printed, from a pdf (although not a scribus pdf)
and the colors came out like on my monitor.

but i offer in defense of scribus the following: many of you have read my
posts and bug reports about the problem with the scribus pdf and acrobat 5.
well, when i print the scribus generated pdf (set to screen/web) form, it's
so good i want to cry with joy!  I can even output the form to the printer
setting, choosing to embed the profiles of srgb iec61966-2.1, and again
perfection.

color management in scribus shouldn't be anymore difficult than any other
piece of software.  since scribus will convert to cmyk, then that's one less
step you have to go through.  thanks to the developers for that one.  if you
set your preferences in your software and hardware to match, scribus
included, and if your cmyk profile matches the one your commercial printer
uses, then you are good to go.

when i lived in new orleans and began my journey into the printing field,
before i used a commercial printer i always got the settings they used in
their software so i would be in synch with them.  that was 1999.  color and
color management has come a long way since then and improvements to the
profiles that ship with software and hardware are more in synch with each
other.  and since many commercial printers can print from a pdf, it has made
the designer's job even easier; and with scribus, even easier since the
software will convert a rgb image to cmyk on the fly!

dwain

-- 
dwain alford
p.o. box 145
winfield, alabama  35594
u.s.a.

tele:  205.487.2570
cell:  205.495.5619
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/pipermail/scribus/attachments/20070306/90079c43/attachment-0001.html