Update Custom CMYK or give us a family of profiles!

Custom CMYK is old and creaky and badly in need of reworking to reflect an ICC profile workflow, yet Adobe hasn't given us a substitute. There really should be the ability to modify profiles within photoshop. At the very least the Web and Sheetfed ICC profiles should be provided as a family with various black generations, etc.

We've tried to remove Custom CMYK entirely, but too many people complained.

How do you need to modify the profiles?
Is it just black generation and TAC?

Hi Chris,

Thanks for listening. Compared to many, I'm no CMYK expert, but even in doing simple things I find I need to use Custom CMYK. For example, without Custom CMYK and using the supplied icc profiles there's no way I know of to replace the shadows with high GCR areas. I'm sure others could add many other examples of why one profile isn't enough.

I’d like to see you toss it Chris, it is a mess. However, there are compelling reasons why users need to alter just black generation and TAC. We can’t expect everyone to have a $5000 profile building package. Some of the better packages are placing all the measured data in private tags and that (and maybe other) packages can rebuild the profile from that data (that is, modify the TAC and black generation). I guess it’s too bad Imation was kind of ahead of it’s time with it’s smart CMM which is now long dead. Something like that, which would allow users to alter those parameters would be most helpful (or it might cause users to totally hose a profile and the resulting Sep).

In a way, I can see how Adobe needs to ensure they don’t provide functionality that can be VERY dangerous to it’s users. Hosing an entire press run because someone messed with black generation could be scary. On the other hand, if the classic engine goes away (as I feel it should), it needs to be replaced with a much more modern, and controllable ICC based alternative.

I tend to follow Andrew's line of thinking -- get rid of the old engine (it really isn't up to current quality standards), but allow some editing of ICC profiles (or at a minimum Adobe's profiles) to alter the black generation and TAC. (If Andrew would like to discuss this further, he knows where to find me ;-)

But I need to hear from other print users what they think of the idea, and what they feel they need to change in profiles (or create profiles).

Chris, Toss it - but you need to supply a black only CMYK profile to fix the screwed up separations that are handed to us. This will address the K only objects that are needed from bad ICC conversions. I use the old tables for K only seps all the time. If you take it away - you need to replace it with something new. I don't like it anymore then you guys - but it does serve a purpose due to the open architect.

The only thing going for the old tables is its black channel routines. Ask Andrew, I showed him the issues.

Andrew - I still get 400% separations from some photographers.

A Prebinding workflow with a color tweener would stop a lot of the print nightmares...

-->get rid of the old engine (it really isn't up to current quality standards), but allow some editing of ICC profiles (or at a minimum Adobe's profiles)

That would work since by and large, the Adobe profiles (at least my experience with U.S. Web Coated Profile) is superb. Or at the very least, a stop gap would be to supply a family of profiles with differing TAC and some GCR (none, light, med and heavy) settings. You could put them in a goodies folder as not to confuse the masses. Since you’ve got the measured data, I assume whatever magical profile generator Thomas has (which produces some pretty awesome profiles) could do the job. A profile for newsprint would be nice too. If the DTR004 gets finalized, that be a good one to add.

But having a black generation editor for Adobe supplied profiles would certainly be even better. For other profiles, nope, don’t take the responsibility of screwing something up. Then there would be little use for the classic engine. I’ll bet you could count on one hand the number of users who actually built Sep tables using measured data and the Custom CMYK dialog. I suspect 99% of users messing with the classic engine just picked an ink set and altered TAC and GCR. That’s about all anyone needs. If they need more, well buy a Spectrophotometer and a software package (and stop bitching).

agree. dogs and cats living together.

Yeah, we're waiting for standards before we do another newsprint profile (hopefully TR004 will be done in time =|-).

And no, I think I'd need both hands and a foot to count the people who've used measured data and the custom CMYK dialog.

Some people would like to see a full profile building feature in Photoshop. But I'm not sure it's worth the hassle. I think 98% of users can get by with changeable black generation and TAC (ok, and maybe a "special" profile for Mike). I just need evidence to back that up before management will commit to changing things.

If the DTR004 gets finalized, that be a good one to add.





changeable black generation and TAC




Those'll do it for me.

This comes up frequently in the forums that I watch. I only work occcasionally with CMYK, but like most photographers I would applaud this extra control over the printed image.

My guess is that there is also a large market of inkjet users that would be attracted to a profiling or profile editing feature in Photoshop.

I'd like to associate myself with the above suggestions made by Ric and Andrew.

Chris, it's not for me - it's a common requirement for commercial print - because of the open source of color management. I just don't pull this stuff out of my head just because...

I've worked in enough shops to see a whole lot. The good, bad and ugly.

Toss it? Why? It's a low maintenance feature (it asks for no food or drink : )
It can easily produce a variety of Black plates for the same picture
(think maxK and none; practical for screen captures with type and ghosting images with no black)

… but by all means, make Photoshop able to tweak profiles.

WHY?

BECAUSE it's old technology and we need to push the litho geezers off of it. It creates more problems then it solves. Again, because the industry is too open ended and too many people can't do things correctly - nor care to or are aware of such.

Larry, a color tweener would fulfill what you are doing with the old color tables and suffice as a non linear profile editor (tweaker). It's unfortunate that my ideas are about 10 years ahead of its time.

You and Kodak : )

I'd pretty much have torture covered as a career.

A tweener would eliminate the need for mutiple profiles with different TIL's.

And Andrew goes WTF Crayola? yea....

I agree that it is essential for Photoshop to provide a solution that provides dynamic adjustment of black generation and TAC (TIL)-- ideally for all ICC profiles. I just don't think that the handful of Adobe-blessed profiles are sufficient for the range of industry conditions encountered. But I also think there needs to be control of maximum black on an image-type by image-type basis (particularly in the 80-95% range).

Working in book publishing, I find the very frequent need for Maximum black generation (for screen captures, etc) and black generation of None (for ghosting behind text).

Also, I would plead that -- unless the functionality can be duplicated by other currently unavailable means -- that you don't eliminate that Custom CMYK dialog for this additional reason: Many of us use custom-generated black channels (sometimes then tweaked with curves) for a variety of unobvious reasons (i.e., to get a strongly sharpenable black channel or to create a channel that will ultimately be blended into something else, possibly not even within a CMYK color space).

Perhaps a viable approach for deprecating the Custom CMYK dialog (to aid the printing industry in moving past it as a default) while continuing to make it available to those who choose -- would be to move its functionality to an optional plug-in.

But please do not remove its functionality without replacing it with comparable functionality.

Perhaps another viable approach might be for Adobe to buy or license Kodak's profile editing technology, which from what I have heard (mostly from Andrew's writings) is already very well-matched to Photoshop.

In the end, even though the Custom CMYK dialog is a blunt and annoying tool, sometimes it's the only one we have that can handle the job. Don't remove it without replacing ALL of its functionality.

The issue with editing all profiles is that now Adobe takes on responsibility for something (the profile) that they didn’t originally have anything to do with. Profile editing can work or fail and a lot has to do with the quality of the original profile as well as the tools provided for editing to the user and the skill of the user.

What we need is the ability to simply alter TAC and black generation. Having a full blown editor inside of Photoshop might be real cool to some. That’s where the Kodak product comes in fairly well. I suspect that it’s not a huge market that would justify the cost to implement (or buy) so I can see why Adobe might pass on that. But TAC and black generation on some profiles (certainly those supplied by Adobe) is a step in the right direction.

Now you can use the Classic engine to create a conversion from scratch so in a way, one could argue for something that allows this inside of Photoshop but you’d probably need to support a Spectrophotometer which is a bit of work and a moving target. Or perhaps Photoshop could import spectral data to build a profile but again, there are all kinds of targets and layouts for Spectrophotometers (so a lot of work). And I would think if someone dropped $1000+ on a Spectrophotometer they are probably serious enough to spend some money on a dedicated profile building package.

If Adobe could come up with some cool, Imation like smart CMM that would allow us to take existing ICC CMYK profiles and alter TAC and black generation, in my mind that’s plenty. Then supply a bigger family of ICC profiles (like they supply a family of ink models in the classic engine) and off you go.

The CMYK dialog is more than blunt and annoying, it some cases it’s broken (or to be kind, behaving in odd ways).

As for RGB editing and profile creation, I don’t think we (nor Adobe) needs to go there.

If Adobe could come up with some cool, Imation like smart CMM that would
allow us to take existing ICC CMYK profiles and alter TAC and black generation,
in my mind that’s plenty.




geez. and I wonder where that came from...

I agree that the functionality of the old Imation CMM would be great.

Another choice might be an add on to Photoshop that works just like a simple little software product I have from almost ten years ago.... Separation Lab from Radius (of Pressview monitor fame). It worked reasonably well for a software product that I don't think ever got past version 1.0 It was essentially like a typical profile building application except that the measurement data for several common printing or proofing conditions was built into the program. All you had to do was pick a set of common measurement data and plug in parameters on how you wanted the profile built. In addition to black generation and total ink issues, you could control some aspects of how perceptual rendering tables were built. It provided an interactive preview with some typical sample images... low key, high key, flesh tones, bright colors, computer generated gradients etc... so you could get a rough idea what the type of profile you were defining would do to these subjects. Refine and modernize a few features. Add more controls for dot gain. You'd have a very nice replacement for the Classic CMYK engine that Photoshop has now. Not exactly a replacement for a full blown profile building application but it would give many more options than the small set of supplied ICC profiles currently do.

Bob Smith

Having a profiling feature in Photoshop is not a priority for print users. Having a process control routine is. You can make profiles till the cows come home, but that does not solve the huge mess in the industry. To me - it's a waste of engineering time because there are already profiling packages out there. THERE IS NO PROCESS CONTROL WITHIN PHOTOSHOP!

Mike,

Your comments are usually way above me. Can you explain what you mean by PROCESS CONTROL. And what feature you would like added to give this functionality?

First let me day this discussion is no going on the Color Theory Yahoo list with some good points being made (and some obvious misunderstandings about profile editing by the host who has posted some rather hostile points about Adobe and it’s concern for it’s customer). Thankfully there are some members of that list who have their heads screwed on correctly and agree that a dialog rather than a rant is more productive.

As I see this, there are a few options. What users want is the ability to, at the very least, have the same basic functionality as the Classic CMYK engine. Let’s say we forget about the current ability to measure some 61 patches, gather the lab values and build a separation. Why? Because if you have a Spectrophotometer, you can probably find software to measure a lot more patches and build good quality ICC profile from say the IT8/7.3 or ECI2002 target.

So going back to the Classic engine, users want to select from a group of ink models (SWOP etc) and then specify TAC and UCR/GCR. Adobe could just supply a family of their excellent profiles ala Thomas Knoll with this and be done. For example, SWOP (based on TR001 measurements) with GCR of None, Low,Med,High/Max and maybe TAC of 290/300/320 etc. There would be a lot of profiles and I suspect the folks who just have to have the functionality of the Classic engine would still bitch (I want 325 TAC...) Silly but there is a group that demands they get every drop of current “functionality” no matter the flakeyness of the current controls. However, supplying a more representative group of output profiles based on standards (TR001, DTR004, SNAP etc) is certainly a step in the right direction.

What would of course be awesome would be the possibility that Adobe could build functionality into ACE and recreate the “smart CMM” of years past. Now that would require building some kind of UI to allow the user to specify TAC and GCR from existing ICC profiles (perhaps ONLY Adobe generated ICC profiles which would be fine with me). That’s not an easy task (from the standpoint of making it “easy” for users. I have no idea how difficult it would be to even produce such a smart CMM but if anyone can do it, it’s Adobe).

The advantages to Adobe would be the continued use of their CMM in their apps. Something I still recommend since time has proven that ACE is both very reliable and powerful (Black Point Compensation being one example). Maybe the UI is similar in this new CMM setup as the classic engine whereby you load an existing Adobe generated ICC profile for the “ink set” you want to work with, then apply the tweaks. At this point, that separation would be see in the CMYK working space popup menu and Mode Change-CMYK would produce the conversions.

As to the misunderstandings on the Color Theory list about this kind of capability and “profile editing” I should state that I see no reason why Photoshop should address profile editing (ala Kodak’s plug-in or other stand alone profile editors). Maybe in another 5 years IF some of the current users who frequent the Color Theory list and still believe that ICC profiles are the cause of hair loss and male ED, we might go that direction. Today, we simply need the Classic engine to go away and be replaced with similar functionality using real life ICC profiles.

Ric, Read Andrews book.

So Mike, you actually AGREE with Andrew? Amazing. We must be getting somewhere. Except for totally removing Custom CMYK, which I feel needs to be kept unless something really replaces everything is can do, so do I. I say, let's bury Custom CMYK deeper for the few that need it, and put the new functionality up front.

I know how to use Custom CMYK for what I need and some of Photoshop's enhanced features make no sense to me. The path tool's UI is an example and the shortcut "a" for arrow instead of airbrush; those two changes slowed me down at least 5%.

Eventually - ALL the experts _WILL_see it my way.

WHY?

because when you feel so confident in your evaluation - you don't stand down.

Mike Ornellas, "colour separation - black&white backround" #1, 3 Jul 2005 9:15 pm </cgi-bin/webx?13@@.3bbb2c8d/0>

At some point in time - the world will see it my way...

Mike, If a B&W background gets converted to a K only CMYK profile, the color layers dragged over become K only too, unless you copy and paste each channel individually : )

You need to set your color policies to "don't color manage." This will strip the profile from the conversion and use the working space as the color space descriptor - after said conversion. This will stop K only seps when you drag and drop.

Actually, all this color mgmt. stuff is over engineered and pretty much confusing to most. Again, the world _WILL_ see things my way, some day.

I'm pretty confident of that and will not back down from the thesis.

"Again, the world _WILL_ see things my way, some day."

But only after investing in some heavy pharmacology. ;-)

Ok,

I'll start with you first. What flavor of pet meds works for you?

I know Andrew is pretty heavily sedative at this point because he understands the misunderstood. It took a large dose of reality to clear the infection.

;o)