[scribus] re washed out printout

[Terry Todd]

Peter,

The Xerox 8560 and HP 9850 are not your typical "desktop" printers.

I went to:
http://www.antelligent.com/pages/profiles/rgb_cmyk_printers.html
and followed the directions there to determine that both the Xerox
8560 and HP 9850 are indeed Working CMYK printers.

I am not telling scribus to export anything.  I click on File ->
Print -> Print and I get a washed out printout.  I am trying to
print directly (ie. File -> Print -> Print) to a local printer
attached to the PC running scribus and get a washed out printout.
I am beginning to think it is not possible with CMYK PostScript
printers.

I had previously tried exporting to a PDF with Output Intended for:
set to Screen/Web and the resultant PDF looks and prints fine.
However this is not printing directly from scribus.  This is
exporting to a PDF file and printing it as another step.  Setting
Output Intended for: printer is for sending the PDF to a commercial
printer I am told and doesn't apply to a local printer attached to
the PC that is running scribus.

Terry Todd



On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 07:22:46AM +0200, Peter Nermander wrote:
> > How do I get it to be not washed out when going directly to a CMYK
> > PostScript printer attached directly to the PC that is running
> > scribus?  I'm assuming if I can export to a PDF with "Output Intended
> > for:" set to printer and have that work then that would also solve
> > the printing direct to a CMYK PostScript printer problem.
> 
> Are you REALLY SURE your printer accepts CMYK data?
> 
> Just because the printer prints with the colors Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and
> Black doesn't mean its driver accepts CMYK data. Most desktop printers are
> designed to accept RGB data and then does the conversion themselves.
> 
> I think what is happening to you is the following:
> 
> You tell Scribus to export to CMYK ("export for printer"), so Scribus does
> a conversion from RGB to CMYK (using the color profiles you have set it to
> use).
> 
> You print the CMYK data to your printer, but since your printer does not
> accept CMYK data the printing application (or possibly the printer driver)
> will do another conversion (from CMYK to RGB, but using what profiles I
> don't know) and then send the data to the printer. Inside the printer the
> RGB data will again be converted to CMYK (using built in color profiles).
> 
> 
> So you get several RGB-CMYK (or the opposite) conversions, some of them
> involving color profiles you do not have any control over.
> 
> 
> If you just set to "export for web/screen" the data will be RGB all the
> way into the printer, where it will do the final conversion to CMYK.
> 
> 
> One of the keys to successful color management is to only do conversion
> ONCE, and this conversion is preferrably done at the printer/RIP level.
> 
> That's the whole point with the PDF/X formats if I undestand it right,
> they contain colorspace and profile information so the RIP can do a good
> conversion AND so that print preview works as axpected.
> 
> 
> /Peter
> 
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