[scribus] Colour Profiles - make colour matching worse!

Gregory Pittman gregp_ky at yahoo.com
Fri Jul 24 03:33:43 CEST 2009


Calum Polwart wrote:
> AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!
>
> I have a 32 page newsletter with a  colour cover.  We've had problems before with poor colour matching so we've been trying to export as PDF X/3
>
> But when I export to X3 I get an awful mess!
>
> Basically there are some shadows in two cover photos and they export as black rather than dark colour.  But the bit I don't understand is...
>
> I have scribus open on my computer.  I tell it to export to PDF X/3 and then open on the same computer the document in Acrobat Reader (9) and it looks all dark and scary.  So I then try printing it and it prints like it looks in Acrobat...  So the colour match from the Acrobat to the Printer seems fine.  Why does scribus think the photos need to become darker when its exporting them?  Surely they should be rendered darker on the scribus screen....?
>
> I've pulled some screenshots together to show what I mean.  Image on LHS is Acrobat PDF X3 document, middle is scribus and right is PDF 1.4
>
> http://www.wittongilbert.free-online.co.uk/colour.png
>
> You'll notice that PDF1.4 is far clearer than the X3 document...?  Yet this is the same desktop so should they not either all render the same or left and centre be the same?
>   
You shouldn't use PDF X-3 unless you really need it, and this depends on 
having the color profiles for the final device where it is printed. The 
appearance on screen is not so important, ultimately you are interested 
in the final printed on paper result. I could be wrong, but I think it 
would not be recommended for web viewing. Other versions, like 1.4, may 
look washed out with the dark colors on screen, but when printed may 
look fine.

Greg




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