CMYK vs RGB RE: PDF query

Craig Ede craigede at hotmail.com
Wed Oct 22 07:34:47 PDT 2014



Yes, I think color conversions are that complex. 
RGB was designed for monitors allowing a broad range of additive colors in the form of light (i.e. lit pixels).
CMYK was designed for subtractive printing to paper offering a restricted range of those colors; many of the RGB colors being "out of gamut" for CMYK, meaning there is no formula to convert them.
Nobody serious is printing high-quality hardcopy using R, G, and B inks. And I'm not sure why one would want to use CMYK to print to the screen.

Craig
> From: David.Davis at non.schneider-electric.com
> To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
> Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 03:34:52 -0500
> Subject: RE: CMYK vs RGB RE: PDF query
> 
> Are colour conversions really that "complex"?
> They're just converting colour coordinates in one colour-space to those in another, using some straightforward formulae that are hidden under the hood.
> (The choice of formula, and what to do if a colour is 'out of gamut', depends on the 'rendering intent', of which we usually have a choice of four).
> The conversions will give 'round-tripping' errors if they're out of gamut.
> This is why better Adobe software (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign) maps RGB and CMYK via a device-independent ("LaB") representation, rather than straight from one to the other.
> The problem with FrameMaker is that the conversion algorithms it uses are crude rubbish. This is why they frequently give such awful results, not because it's "complex".
> 
> From previous threads on the Adobe Forums, it seems that the conversion formula Frame uses is:
> 
> RGB to CMYK:
> C = max(R, G, B) - R
> M = max(R, G, B) - G
> Y = max(R, G, B) - B
> K = 100 - max(R, G, B)
> 
> CMYK to RGB:
> R = min(100 - K - C, 0)
> G = min(100 - K - M, 0)
> B = min(100 - K - Y, 0)
> 
> ...which gives rubbish results.
> 
> David
> 
> ____
> 
> From: Jacob Sch?ffer (Grafikhuset) <js at grafikhuset.dk>
> To: <info at heiko-haida.de>,      "'Craig Ede'" <craigede at hotmail.com>
> Cc: 'framers' <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
> Subject: RE: CMYK vs RGB RE: PDF query
> Message-ID: <00a601cfec93$39b38e10$ad1aaa30$@grafikhuset.dk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> It?s definitely NOT easy to explain this. Color conversions are COMPLEX. Anyway, RGB -> CMYK conversion is lossy, and CMYK -> RGB is also lossy.
> 
> 
> 
> What is the point of the RGB switch afterall? Why not just pass through what?s input and remove this switch?
> 
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