Especially in larger companies today the layout in RGB is the rule rather than the exception. The advantages are obvious:
- The layout takes place in a large, almost media-neutral color space
- All Photoshop filters are available without restrictions
- The process of color space conversion to CMYK is shifted to the production process as late as possible
In practice, however, there are two potential problems in particular.
Problem 1: CMYK conversion in the last step.
The catalogue is designed in InDesign, all data is perfectly matched, the last step before printing and proofing is the export to a printable PDF in CMYK. Usually this is done via a preset in InDesign, which defines the exact specifications for the color space conversion. In practice, however, this color space transfer can hardly be monitored. The problem: Even if you check the color values in Acrobat in the exported PDF file, for example, Acrobat does not really display the colors it contains. Acrobat brav would show you CMYK values even if the RGB images are still wrongly contained. However, other CMYK values can occur during printing when the data is processed again. Lately it looked like this: