Essential Tips Converting RGB To CMYK | The Art Of Printing | Getting Started | Matt Irwin

[@aleksandarpavlic89]

Брате хвала ти пуно, најјачи си од свих предавача!!!

[@lydia-sacredsong]

Thanks for the info. It would have been more helpful to start this vid at 5:58 and just stay on topic however. When one is working on a project, especially under a time pressure, they need a quick easy answer! I tend to return to channels that get straight to the point and stay on point. Just thought to share this.

[@ctrlshftep]

Intro was relevant to me

[@loihpatli]

Of course we'd love to see more! Thanks for the content, Matt!

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Awesome, thank you Mati. Will do. matt

[@timclayton8214]

Great video thanks. I don't use Photoshop but I do use Krita to show me these differences. I once designed a CD cover knowing nothing and a whole load were printed looking terrible!

[@EveningReport]

Brilliant Matt. If Covid lockdowns keep you captured in your home studio, your tutorials using Lightroom and PS are a huge bonus for us. I'd imagine live webinars would compensate you for your expertise too! Your approach to light and colour is like a nuance to be learnt. Hope that makes sense.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Thanks sir. Lovely feedback :) Yes I will keep working out the best way to deliver. :) What else would you like to hear about ?? Cheers Matt

[@EveningReport]

@@MattIrwinPhotography Off the top of my head, it would be very cool to take a journey from production, an image/s captured in the field > the selection of the best image, the how it is handled in post production. (PS: It could work too in preparing video, or your set-up for your episodes from idea > production > post.) All this isn't to say you haven't done this. In a live webinar/tutorial you could take a participant's image/video and take it on that journey too.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@EveningReport Love both those ideas, they are on the list :) Cheers Matt

[@usfakbari2698]

wow editor you dooo fantastic

[@winkiesworldvideos1738]

Newbie here...I design graphics with hot saturated colors My 1st disappointment was the end result. I'd love to see/learn converting from RBG to CMYK on different substrates..paper vs textiles...Is there any other affordable software to color correct, like Photoshop?

[@boardriderz]

Thanks Matt, will give this a try when it isn’t midnight and I’m not watching the Tour De France on SBS!

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Yeah 'tour' time of year :)

[@imacicute]

Love your work Matt. Yes, more please.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

More to come! :)

[@garyspeed8961]

the basic question is if I convert to CMYK and save the file have I lost the original RGB gamut? do I have to keep two master files... one for RGB and one for CMYK?

[@martieleusink3479]

Thanks Matt, very insightful!

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

My pleasure Martie.

[@thomasfox5476]

Thanks Matt, another very helpful video

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Thanks Thomas :)

[@pauldhoff]

OHHHH NOOOO IT IS MATT. So good to see you tooooo. :)

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

LOL :)

[@johnvaleanbaily4859]

Thanks Matt for the lesson. More :)

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Pleasure John, for sure : )

[@georgmetz1344]

Thx Matt. I would love to see more about the preparation of images for print.

[@georgmetz1344]

And here's one question I forgot to write down: I agree it is the best way to convert an image to CMYK before printing it. But many print services, also very professional ones, require the uploaded images to be in RGB. Why do they do that?

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Thanks Georg, my guess is they are printing RGB, which many printers can print RGB, it is a different process than CMYK offset. RGB is used more when giclee printing / large format inkjet. Does that make sense? Cheers Matt

[@pauldhoff]

Good to know at least what too expect in the print. And of course more, Thank-you again.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

You bet Paul :)

[@markwalsh4mtr]

Please, anything on pre-press. Specifically colour working spaces and printer profiles.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Roger!

[@Flat_Earth_Sophia]

I just spent my life savings accidentally printing 10 copies of a 580 page, 2,700 photo book, that was RGB and only 75 resolution. Is it going to be rubbish?

[@ForevermoreVibe]

Thank you - this will be where I start when I get to that stage. I put an image of a macro flower through one of those shop machines just to see the look and it was a total waste of time as all the black colour of the stamens from the flower centre were missing - and it was important for the entire look. This was a shop with staff managing their big machines, so I could see it would be unusable and thought about making small scale handmade cards myself. Now to locate the Hahnmuhle paper I want....oh the joys...

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Indeed, I am not sure where you are in the world, but here in Australia, we have a print houses that have quick machines, and the results I would say are verging on not passable. But they are very cheap, like 5 or 10 cents a print. :) I started back in 1990 making my own cards. :) Best of luck. Cheers Matt

[@ForevermoreVibe]

@@MattIrwinPhotography Hi Matt, I am in NZ - the prints are about $1.30. I have quite a few nice images - at least they look great and super colourful on screen so I will get around to print one of these days. Just a side point - my Z7 took a mighty crash from the top of my tripod (yeah, I know!). I thought that was the end of my baby - but not, two months later it is still functioning and no glass breakage. Hopefully it will continue OK - it's a tank. If it doesn't last I will probably get the Z7 again.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@ForevermoreVibe Hi WFH, so sorry to hear about the fall. Did you see the episode where I did the same thing with my Z6. Like yours, mine is still going strong. Great cameras. : ) Cheers Matt kzbin.info/www/bejne/p2eVY2mXmr2Go68

[@ForevermoreVibe]

@@MattIrwinPhotography Yes I saw that video. When it happens to yourself, it's like ugh, so you pick it up, check it over and reluctantly turn it on - but the biggest lesson for me is that hey other people have done that also so it is not quite as upsetting, and now I make sure it's not going to fall again because after all I will be the one having to buy another camera. But I am confident with the z7.

[@dronemetrics5853]

Absolutely! I never used EPS format though... in your opinion is better that Cmyk direct exchange rather than previewing the rgb with the paper profile for hard proofing ?? Thanks for your amazing skills

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Hi Mario, I don't quite follow what you are asking here, do you mind re - phrasing the question. :) Cheers Matt

[@dronemetrics5853]

@@MattIrwinPhotography Good morning Matt! I just was wondering, if, I normally use RBG with paper profile previewing in PSP for preparing for printing, is it be better than moving straight to CMYK and then assigning a paper profile...?? .- Just a though...

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@dronemetrics5853 Mario, I think I would go CMYK first. What type of printing are you doing, ink jet or offset? Cheers Matt

[@dronemetrics5853]

@@MattIrwinPhotography Hi master...normally I rely on the CMYK conversion of the printer ( Epson SC 4900, 11 xolors ) and the paper Icc profiles that I made for the papers i use...

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@dronemetrics5853 That sounds awesome. If you are getting great results, as I said in the video, there is more than one way to make these things work. :)

[@samuelkeaton3944]

Thank you very much for your tutorials. They are very very helpful. I am looking for a tool, action or recommendation to check for shadow/highlight clipping for CMYK images. I have and use one for RGB files, but don't think that I can use it for CMYK files. Thoughts? I'm preparing a print on demand photo project, and laying the groundwork for processing the CMYK files. Thank you. Any guidance is appreciated. Keep up the great contribution.

[@EdwardKilner]

I sort of understand RGB to CMYK processing (a mapping operation) then printing it on paper and viewing the result. But, switching between two files viewed on an RGB monitor- is the CMYK file going through a conversion back to RGB? Must be, unless you have a CMYK display. And then, when we do soft proofing on an RGB monitor, are we doing a similar thing? I’ll leave my questions on monitor calibration until next time ( my desktop, laptop, and iPad are all calibrated with same x-rite process, all RGB but different panel manufacturers).

[@vicwahbyphotography4866]

That's an interesting point about an RGB monitor displaying a CMYK file. Did you ever determine how that's even possible, let alone shows us how it will "really" look in print?

[@grantking4681]

Matt, a friend from our camera club suggested I send my pics for printing as sRGB and as a TIFF, (as opposed to JPG) primarily for the file size, the TIFF is so much bigger. Remember all I'm doing is printing the occasional pic for my wall, not for a book being sold in commercial quantities.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Hi Grant, I would say it depends on the size of the print, how large are you printing them? Cheers Matt

[@grantking4681]

@@MattIrwinPhotography Good point, nothing larger than A3.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@grantking4681 Hmmm well highest quality Jpeg is ok. Tiff is fine, PSD is fine. These days files sizes depending where you are in the world, with high speed internet and file share services, it does not really matter, if it is one or two prints at a time. I would always send my files at the highest quality for the best outcome. May as well :)

[@vicwahbyphotography4866]

HI Matt - Perhaps he toughest part is asking the right question... For me, it's what format to send to the magazine. They never know the printer's specific CMYK profile. So, am I still better off sending them generic CMYK from PS, or letting them convert an RGB TIFF to their specific CMYK profile?

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Hi Vic, my thought would be if you make the CMYK file then you can control the conversion, which is probably where the most changes happen in some cases :) Cheers Matt

[@alistairnicholson2046]

Nikon recommend sRGB for general purposes, but do make Adobe RGB available as a colour space. I'm wondering if that needs to be converted to CMYK EPS or perhaps the conversion might be more accurate. 8 bit seems a bit of a drop too. Or perhaps that's the norm and only the fancy printers go higher or take Adobe RGB direct? Very curious now.

[@dariaignatenko3559]

Thank you sooo much 🙂

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

You're welcome 😊

[@nova2560]

Matt, I want to make my file in printable form and send it to someone far, they'll print it What should I do so that they'll print it and get the results? ☹️

[@g00nther]

Thanks Matt. I had no idea about this. Is it that CMYK is inherently incapable of capturing that exact shade of pink, or is it capable, but not from that particular starting shade of pink in the RGB photo? I hope that question makes sense 😕 Also, in a future video can you do a comparison of say the 24-70mm kit lens at 50mm, and a prime 50mm lens? I'd love to see what the differences are between prime lenses and "normal" lenses at the prime focal length.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

I think the answer is both in this case. Basically with CMYK colours, with the mix of dots, this colour cannot be made. Which if this pink was you logo, you would use a spot colour, which some companies do. Great idea on the 50mm :)

[@roybixby6135]

Good Advice - But lately I've been having more trouble with LED panels having holes in their colour spectrum...

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Which screen are you using?

[@casperghst42]

Good info, thanks. But isn’t more or less the same one does when doing “Proof” in Lightroom - you apply a profile to the photo? (I always enjoy, trying to bring the saturation back to the photos .... grrr).

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Hi Casper, sorry I don't use Lightroom. So I am not sure. The profile is only part of the story, you also need to make the CYMK file, is that included in the process? Cheers Matt

[@blythewarland6688]

Always always want to hear more of the technical side of things from you. On that subject how do you save your images? I’m looking at buying a Drobo 5n to safely store my stuff instead of random external hard drives

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Blythe I love Drobos, these days I have about 7 or 8 of them. Mini, 5C and 5D. The 5N is the network edition, so might be a little slower. But if it is just backup then speed may not matter. How many MP is your main camera, and will you be doing live editing from it? Cheers Matt

[@blythewarland6688]

Matt I had a Nikon D850 so saving big raw files, to be honest I haven’t thought about live editing? Would it be ok for that or would I have to export it back to the computer? I have just upgraded the hdd to a 2TB SSD, it’s an Imac

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@blythewarland6688 In capture one, like light room, it is no destructive editing, which means your RAW files remain intact. Only if I need to use the file for online or print do I create a new file type, using Jpg or PSD. The 5N is a great time machine style backup :) Cheers Matt

[@blythewarland6688]

Matt Thanks for that, as I only do small tweaks to my photos the software in my iMac photos does most of what I need but there are things like stacking and HRD that I want to play with so I will check out Capture One Also I managed to get a Drobo 5DT for a great price today - not one I was looking at but at the price I couldn’t say no

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@blythewarland6688 I think you will be happy with the DROBO. Where did you get it from, as supply seems a little scarce at the moment? CHeers Matt

[@Nippius]

Loved this little tutorial. Can you share more? I've never printed my photos (besides some 8x10) but I would like to, someday, so this is very helpfull! A question though, when we convert to CYMK we are truncating the color space and when we apply the printer profile, we are truncating even further? Or are there other changes?

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Yes of course, for sure we are losing some colour going to CMYK, if you file has those 'out of gamut' colours. As we saw with the first file, it had nothing outside of CMYK gamut, so looked the same. It is dependant on the image you have created. As for the printer profile, each printer has potentially their own setup. And those profiles sometimes actually help make the files look a little better, plus they take into account printing on paper... so they may make it a little better. There are interesting little details with offset printing, like anything over 97% colour, will largely become 100%, because the printing dot cannot handle that last little bit, and the dot 'fills in'. And this can be dependant on the quality of the 'pre-press' the printer, the ink. So printers make profiles to adjust your file to their workflow, and it helps usually .... :) It is very detailed stuff, with a great deal of nuance and moving parts. :)

[@Nippius]

@@MattIrwinPhotography Uau this is a lot more complicated then I realized. Thank you! Like you said, there's a lot of tiny details. I need to start looking into this :) Please do more if you can. We do love them! 👍

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@Nippius Cheers will do. : )

[@cesarm8811]

I need to check with Epson (my model Et-4670 printer) if the printer does the conversion.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

It may, but then you get the results that it decides on .... :)

[@godsfinalpleaministries]

I made business cards for my ministry and they were in RGB, but when they were printed, they were in CMYK and didn't match my original. I was really surprised by how different they looked. I am not studying how to make CMYK look more like RGB and your video helped. Thank you and God bless your channel...

[@tomg6286]

Thanks

[@clintwood1983]

Nice video, id like to get my images into a book, just for personal use so be interested if you shared that process. Cheers.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Hi DDL, are you thinking of making an offset book, or just 1 - 5 copies? Cheers Matt :)

[@clintwood1983]

@@MattIrwinPhotography thanks for taking the time to reply, id be looking at 4 - 5 copies. Appreciate all the different types of videos you put up. Its an interesting look into all areas of photography.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@clintwood1983 Thanks DDL, then digital will be the way with that many copies. Ensure you find yourself a quality digital book maker, check reviews, and see if people talk about good colour or bad colour. : ) Cheers Matt

[@clintwood1983]

@@MattIrwinPhotography nice one thanks Matt.

[@AndreasBeham]

Nice video, but I think you didn't really assign the profile at the first image (in 3:24 you hit okay without changing the radio button), just saying. I hope you're doing good and that this lookdown is soon over. Cheers!

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Good point! You are completely correct Andreas in the first one I actually forgot to press the button. Got it right on the second one :) Thanks me too, hopefully only two more weeks to go. Hoping to get my 70-200 2.8 S tomorrow :) Cheers Matt

[@AndreasBeham]

@@MattIrwinPhotography That would be awesome! I just watched Ricci's comparison and wow, this lens is sharp corner to corner. Amazing!

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@AndreasBeham Yes I think it is a beast .... worth the wait and will really propel the Z system.

[@everybhodyshitdownplijeu154]

What app is he using?

[@gregt8655]

Thanks for the tutorial Matt. One question, I have been doing my own printing for years now, and I do it from Lightroom. Does "soft proofing" essentially do the same thing as you did in Photoshop? Cheers Matt.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Hi Greg, by soft proofing do you mean creating a PDF? And then there are so many factors, are the files being used to create the pdf RGB or CMYK and how are you creating your PDF ....

[@gregt8655]

@@MattIrwinPhotography I bring my raw file into Lightroom, edit the file, then click the soft proofing box at the bottom of the develop module, click the create a soft proof copy, enter the paper and printer profile, click the simulate paper and ink box and it shows me how the image will print. It does the same thing to the image you described, it tends to mute the image compared to the original.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

@@gregt8655 Sounds like Adobe are doing a good job of helping to estimate what the file will look like. I don't use Lightroom as I don't enjoy the workflow across the modules. Capture one everything is in one place basically. And this is more like Apples Aperture, which I used for almost 15 years. There approach made the workflow very fast. :)

[@blythewarland6688]

I need to watch this again and stop as it goes to check my printer/computer/camera set up as I can't print exactly what I see on my screen

[@avnerbenzvi8757]

why in the first place you change to CMYK please in simple word i know nothing about printing thanks keep teach me PRINTING

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Hi Avner, for offset printing, the colours used to print with are Cyan Magenta Yellow and (k)Black. So when you change your file, you have a much better chance of knowing what it will look like. Cheers Matt

[@pauldhoff]

Print a thousand................ maybe two................. this is good, thanks.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Good call!

[@GlennMcDowall-iv6gr]

Omg this was put up in 2021. After watching this I thought it might be 1997😂. Firstly don't convert to CMYK then Assign Profile. You shouldn't use Assign Profile like that. Instead use Convert to Profile... And choose the Profile provided. Whilst in the convert menu you can try out different Intents and select the most pleasing result. Next, don't give up just accepting I can't make it anymore saturated using the saturation slider. You can improve the overall look by adding a little more contrast, a little more saturation, cleaning up specific colours, for those pinks you could take out cyan from magentas. Finally, "Save as EPS this is the printing format" No No No😢😢. Save As Tiff or PSD or PDF or Jpeg, anything except EPS. That way the profile you spent your time converting too has a chance of being read. 😮

[@jackyleecs]

I thought people would send the image files in as PNG or TIFF instead when sending for printing.

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

It is all about 'postscript' 'PDF' and 'EPS' they are all from the same family of file type. When sending something to print you want to ensure that nothing goes wrong. To ensure that you simplify and flatten out the risk areas. And one of the biggest risks is files changing through the 'pre-press' process. Many printers don't care about colour. So you have to ensure what you create survives the process of image to plate, to press. I normally 'press check' as well, to do final tweaks. Which means standing over the press, and making small changes to get things 'perfect', like last year here kzbin.info/www/bejne/p5qyipx3f75gj9k . EPS stands for 'Encapsulated Postscript', and in this case 'Postscript' which is created by ADOBE allows for the pipeline to be unified. Adobe through EPS, postscript and PDF, and attempted to create a pipeline for keeping images, and the workflow as accurate as possible. You certainly can use TIFF and jpeg. I would not use jpeg as it is compressed. And I find unless on the highest setting, or lowest compression, there is colour fidelity and detail loss. All three file types plus PSD will work. From my testing, across the workflow, EPS will give you the most accurate representation through all the stages of pdf'ing and proofing (soft proof and hard proof) of what the colours will actually look like. Like many things in life, there is more than one approach. :) This is my method. And seems to work well. My calendars were printed last week, I have not seen them yet ... so it will be interesting to see how they meet expectations. ( I might add, it is never perfect, but usually about 90% there) Cheers Matt

[@jackyleecs]

@@MattIrwinPhotography Thank you very much! That is a very detailed explanation. :)

[@greatspottedwoodpeck]

You didn't actually sort the problem at all. Your pink has lost its colour.

[@babahash]

Outlines the basics but didn't really teach much. What if you want to fix out of gamat colors so they are as close to reality as possible eg reproducing a painting in print for a book

[@MattIrwinPhotography]

Thanks BABAHASH, out of gamut is out of gamut. Cannot be printed. The only work around is to use a 5th, 6th, 7th spot colour that matches perhaps a specific colour you are missing. Most things the exist in real life don't fall out of gamut, it usually happens with when colours are over pushed ...