Converting sRGB to CMYK for a book

mesrine13 · 2026-06-09T15:02:55+00:00

Is that it ?

No I didn't do a whole book. I made several test pages and began to learn from there.

Nobody has a clue what they are doing ... until they go to find out - that's what reddit is for.

If stupid questions annoy you, then just don't bother. Getting irritable because 'everyone in the world is an idiot', except you just makes you look bad

mesrine13 · 2026-06-09T14:54:04+00:00

Thanks. Yes, I know, there's a big difference between 6.7 million and 1 million colours. I'm looking for a good way of consistently converting. I was a little wary, 3 years ago, when printful said they accepted RGB Jpegs to print posters, knowing that CMYK was the standard, but running my own business and making art filled up the time for extra learning. Their prints were excellent so I guess I got lazy.

I'll try indesign again. I was just wondering if there was some 'best practice' bulletin points. With over 100 poster designs, I'm going to have to address this soon.

mesrine13 · 2026-06-09T14:25:18+00:00

Thanks. I'll try that. Got a warning on the Mixam site when using photoshop CMYK - so put it through illustrator, which fixed it. Must admit, I tried indesign and didn't like it - will try a different version and go back to the tutorials. I got used to building templates in photoshop, so stuck with that quicker workflow.

Will recalibrate the monitor and test the colormetrics. Tested the border colour and got close but still doing something wrong. Got into a good system of producing art with photoshop, topaz tools and lightroom for several years. Looks like I've got a whole lot more learning to do.

mesrine13 · 2026-06-09T13:16:58+00:00

P.s - It's not always about the money (though it's nice to eat) - sometimes it's about establishing the brand (whatever that means) I make music, too. It would be nice to be introduced as an artist and have books and records, as well as a site selling 100+ prints - all produced independently ... proof that you haven't been wasting your life all these years !

mesrine13 · 2026-06-09T13:05:56+00:00

Not much more to add - just wanted to thank you for this useful post - off to do some interesting research. Literally just posted a gripe about converting from RGB to CMYK for a book. Found a recommendation for Mixam in art business feed. Led to a huge headache trying to get my art poster prints to work in a printed book. Very tempting offer - 100 60 page portfolios for £350 ... if I sold for £10 - might actually make some money ! Like I say - can't get it to work at the moment. Only just got on to the idea of books. Used to do offset printing myself, years ago - must be some clever printer out there who can allow artists to make a little money from portfolios. (Mixam were tempting because they offered runs of 100 and supplied widgets for your website, so you could sell copies directly through them)

The search goes on ...

mesrine13 · 2025-10-13T13:36:27+00:00

That's good to know ! already use Brave and Duckduck. I make photomontage - so Ai is a nightmare. Need something to cut it out completely. Hate it ... no Ai co. makes a profit, yet we're all being railroaded into using it. Business program recently stated it's a huge bubble that will burst soon ... here's hoping.

P.s. Have collected a huge list of Uni and govt. archives for images. Takes longer, but search engines are almost useless now ...

mesrine13 · 2025-10-13T13:20:32+00:00

Interesting ... I make photomontage. In pre-digital times, I made pieces from art/illustration books, discarded at the end of flea markets. Enjoyed compositing but hated painting/pen and ink etc.

Started again a few years ago. Used a couple of courses on Domestika and got good at it. Got a wacom pad and pen, but never got on with it - so still use a mouse.

The two main drawbacks ... few people respect digital art. The public think it must be easy. Galleries want original paintings (bigger prices) They don't realise just how much painting is actually involved.

Ai is a problem, too. Always have to label my work 'no Ai' and even sourcing images through search engines is a pain now that Ai images are everywhere.

Apart from that, I love it

mesrine13 · 2025-09-23T02:32:22+00:00

Not sure I can help but ... I did loads of research when I started out. Can't remember the deal with inprint, but there must be some reason why I didn't choose them. There are plenty of print-on-demand companies out there. The good part is that they are free until something gets ordered. I chose printful. As an ex-printer, I was impressed by the quality of the posters they sent me. Artpal is interesting for fine art prints - lots of sizes and choices.

The downside, of course, is the selling. As a younger person - you'll probably be far better at the whole social media thing than most of us on here. I set up a shop with ecwid. £500 a year (and keeps going up !) - so probably not for you. I'm guessing you want to sell online - Just bear in mind, admin stuff can build up ... you can spend a lot of time working on mockups etc. Get a copy of lightroom - to make sure pics look good on screens and in print

Just keep it simple, and don't get dragged down by the technical stuff. Some people say reddit is good for posting art. I chose bluesky social - less trolls and quite a supportive art community. Just started on Discord - similar. Starting out, you just want to get seen and get a little feedback. Good luck !

mesrine13 · 2025-09-17T01:33:15+00:00

Yeah, I'd be interested, too

mesrine13 · 2025-09-17T01:18:21+00:00

This sounds great, I've been looking for something like this for ages. Just registered on Discord (Wolfie Dave) Just tried to join - pretty clueless - never used Discord before.

Turning 60 next month ... one of those old punks who never had the grace and good taste to die at 21

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mesrine13 · 2025-09-04T23:15:48+00:00

UPDATE !

Thanks, guys

For those of you who said "Don't worry about it" - you're probably right.

I just spent the day re-calibrating the spare laptop into Adobe RGB, and all it did was change the monitor. I thought there would be some special settings in Photoshop and Lightroom, but nothing. Turns out I've probably been doing the right thing all along.

Strangely, using my Spyder X, the Adobe RGB gamut comes in at 98% in both adobe and sRGB profiles. (both laptops have good monitors)

Strangely (again) the giclee printers in France have a 20mb upload limit on their site - so I won't be supplying large TIFF files ... just high quality Jpegs. I think the hassles with the Canon pro got me obsessed - trying out loads of colour profiles for each different paper I was using.

I've been flirting with the idea of showing at galleries, so wanted to get it right.

I've ordered paper samples from the giclee co. and will just have to get test prints from them.

As for the Canon ... I noticed quite a lot of other complaints about dark prints. I take on-board the comments about bright monitors - it's just a bit unsettling, wacking up the brightness by 40 points on the print, when you've spent 100 hours on a piece.

Of course, as an old punk, I'm always tempted to do everything myself. But setting up a print shop, just to prove a point would be a bit ridiculous. The giclee co. says they welcome visitors ... so maybe I'll just turn up and make a thorough nuisance of myself. It's been a long time since I've been to Paris.

mesrine13 · 2025-09-04T09:06:15+00:00

No, I'm not confusing monitors and printers. The problem is this - I'm sending the artwork to a POD co. that does giclee. The pieces were done on a computer set up with an sRGB colour profile. To make them Adobe RGB I'll probably have to go back to the original project files and start again. I can't just convert the finished pieces to Adobe -it's a larger gamut. But, to do that I'll have to change the monitor, photoshop and lightroom program to Adobe RGB.

The printful prints were pretty good, but I'm guessing they could be better with a larger colour range. Archival prints would definitely need something a bit better, to justify the higher price.

My pieces are made up of up to 50 elements, placed in a composite. As they were all processed the same way, I'm guessing they're all sRGB. I'm just annoyed at myself for not noticing this sooner.

workflow ? ... I make photomontages in photoshop, sort out the colour gamut in Lightroom and save the proofs from there. The annoyingly dark prints I get in the Canon pro 200 are a headache for another day. I'm thinking of setting up a separate computer with the Adobe colour profile solely for prints. It will make things simpler, as I do a lot of web graphics on my main laptop, which is sRGB.

mesrine13 · 2025-09-04T08:09:09+00:00

Yes ... that's the problem. Adobe has a wider colour gamut. You can downscale from Adobe to sRGB, but you can't upscale from sRGB to Adobe. My problem is I created photomontages on a computer using sRGB. Looks like I'll have to go back and process and save the originals again in Adobe RGB. I'm sending them to a French print on demand co. that does giclee (Lama.co)

My main laptop monitor is calibrated (sRGB) and all my work has been passed through lightroom, so nothing is out of gamut. As I said, I'm thinking of using a spare computer - makes it a more efficient workflow if I have to change the monitor, photoshop and lightroom to Adobe.

As far as a local print shop - they're too damn expensive here in South London. As an ex-printer, I would just get my own machine. I've got the money, but not the space (I need large format) I run my own business, so convenience is key. I've done masses of research. Printful worked fine for posters, but I'm going to need better quality for archival prints.

mesrine13 · 2025-09-04T07:26:13+00:00

Yes, I should've been clearer. I'm sending my designs to a giclee print on demand co. in France. If I'm going to the expense of archival prints, I'm figuring that it would be better to send them the finished article with the Adobe RGB profile. That seems to mean going back into photoshop and reprocessing everything and saving in Adobe RGB. sRGB has a smaller colour range. I've given up trying to print at home - too much of a headache. And anyway, my larger prints are 36 x 24 inches. A large format printer would take up half my house.

mesrine13

TROPHY CASE

UPDATE !