Helpful Posts: I recently tried using Photoshop's CMYK color mode with a four ink (CMYK) printer thinking that adjusting images in the printer's "native" color mode would be beneficial. However, everything I tried simply made the images darker. Am I missing something here?
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Thread: CMYK color mode
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29th January 2017, 08:25 PM #1
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CMYK color mode
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29th January 2017, 08:32 PM #2
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Re: CMYK color mode
It's really not that easy...
Which CMYK were you using? Whatcolour space were you converting from?
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29th January 2017, 08:46 PM #3
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Re: CMYK color mode
From Adobe RGB to U. S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2...
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30th January 2017, 02:10 AM #4
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Re: CMYK color mode
What printer?
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30th January 2017, 02:33 AM #5Moderator
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Re: CMYK color mode
Even though photo printers use variants of CMYK inks, the drivers for these devices have been designed to work as RGB devices and will give you strange results. The ONLY time you should output an image as CMYK is when preparing an image for a traditional offset printing press (i.e. For printing books or magazines), which is something most photographers will never do.
Part of the issue you are likely seeing is that you are getting black from both the CMY ink plus the pure black from the K as well.
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30th January 2017, 06:58 AM #6
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Re: CMYK color mode
The new printer is an Epson ET-4550 with four external tanks instead of ripoff ink boxes. It's likable but slow and the paper tray is infantile and stubborn. Still, I decided not to rebox it and send it back because I use a lot of ink and this is the cheapest way to go. It prints on Epson PGPP and I was surprised at the quality. Still, it seems to like very well illuminated shots. "Output sharpening" at a generous but sane level works well with it and seems to improve midtone contrast. I plan to experiment further with it but the ink seems to have an acceptable but limited gamut.
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30th January 2017, 08:27 AM #7Moderator
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Re: CMYK color mode
If you are using just 4 colours, then you will definitely be limited to the AdobeRGB colour space. The printers that add additional colours and grey inks produce more subtlety and a wider gamut in their output.
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30th January 2017, 03:43 PM #8
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Re: CMYK color mode
Have you tried RGB variants? Adobe RGB is fairly wide, and a lot of the colour will be out of gamut. If a printer doesn't specify what colour space it's expecting then it's probably sRGB; this also applies to a lot of commercial printers, especially consumer outlets.
Some printers have dialogue boxes which ask "Let the printer manage colour" or "Let Photoshop* manage colour"
* Or other colour-managed application.
Here's the manual -
ftp://download.epson-europe.com/pub/...on513278eu.pdf
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