I edited a picture book using scribus
, color management enabled, with CMYK TIFF images and corresponding profile as input. In principle my screen has been calibrated, though more than one year ago.
I set the output :
- to PDFX-1a, for "printing", with a CMYK print profile ;
- to PDF-1.5, for "web", with a "compatible with Adobe RGB (1998)" profile.
Then I sent the first version to a professional printer.
I always assumed the following relationship between versions, expecting onscreen CMYK to be off :
printed CMYK ≃ onscreen RGB ≠ onscreen CMYK
And indeed when color management is enabled in scribus
the rendering of CMYK pictures is that of RGB.
However I just received the printer's proofs, and the actual relationship is as follows :
printed CMYK = onscreen CMYK ≠ onscreen RGB
Did I miss something, or is my workflow presumably wrong ?
Update :
My understanding of the CMYK workflow was indubitably wrong, but I was strongly mislead by the "compatible with Adobe RGB (1998)" profile(which is scribus
' default). I figured using the sRGB profile for screen rendering gives colors much more similar to the CMYK rendering. It seems a known fact : quoting WP entry on Adobe RGB color space, "all of the adjustments made CMYK conversion worse than before"…