Printing in cmyk from a Krita file

[vanilla]

Just wondering if anyone has had experience with 4c printing from a Krita file and has any tips or experiences to share.

Other than to make sure the model is set to CMYK/alpha, make resolution at 300 px, and include crop marks for bleed, is there anything else I need to do?

Will be printing cards with a foil stamp. Will be including an additional layer in black for foil.

Thank you!

[Michelist]

I myself do not know anything about it, but maybe these topics and postings will help you?

How do I prepare my artwork for print?

Thank you so much for the warm welcome and for your advice. I’ll try it out, thank you!

Is working in CMYK worth it?

Over the years it has been an unspoken rule to choose CMYK right at the start when creating new documents for artworks that are going to be printed. Many old-timers may remember working in CMYK from start to finish carefully choosing colors and keeping an eye on the out of gamut warnings while color picking. Despite the effort of these people it would often lead to unsatisfactory results. In the Free Software side of the world, many users demand the CMYK support in apps and tell the developers …

In the following topic, several postings are very interesting, I think (at least for me, they are).

Color modes RGB CMYK different image look after export

Hello dear Krita community! My issue is the issue old as time - how do i export a file that was done in a different color space, so it stays in it? It’s the ‘in program file looks fine, but when exported, it’s too saturated or not saturated, since the color modes for working (cmyk) change into .png/.jpg (rgb)’ Literally i ran into this issue every time i attempt to make my color wheel duller or less dull by changing my colorspace thingy. The HDR modes are all the same…

Also, here it is about pressure

Printing Guide.?

File explorer does not give you access to all the option the driver offers you, thats why i recommend printing from software such as GIMP or Scribus because you need the advanced options for color correction. If you have trouble having accurate colors here’s a thing you can do since you have an Epson printer: When you first install the driver it will also install several icc profiles for printing. Here’s a screenshot of the list of icc profiles bundled with the driver: [Sans titre] You can f…

Have you looked at the following in the manual?

Color Managed Workflow

Michelist

[vanilla]

Thank you Michelist!

I did a quick search but my wording didn’t get these results.

Much appreciated!

[PK1]

You should ask the place you’re printing what format they want. In many cases these days with digital printing, you’re only losing colors by converting to CMYK yourself. While it’s true that printing with inks will not get you the brightest colours that you can see on a monitor in RGB, it’s often still best to give the printer (especially a digital printer) the RGB file. They will pass it through their colour-managed workflow (assuming they do colour-manage properly!) and convert to the closest CMYK colours achievable.
In the case of digital printers which require RGB files to begin with, if you give them a CMYK file, you will have dumbed down your colours without knowing what CMYK their printer is capable of, only for the digital printer to have to convert it back to RGB for their printer, which will then convert it again to CMYK, potentially shifting the colours a second time!
In short, ask the printer what format and colour profile they want embedded in the file and just give them that.

[Takiro]

Not to mention that professional industry grade printers don’t even use CMYK but much more colors and usually have a custom color profile. You can ask the print shop to give you the printers profile and you could use it for soft proofing in Krita, theoretically.

[vanilla]

Thank you Takiro. I just read about soft proofing in Krtia… pretty great feature.

[vanilla]

This is exactly one of my concerns. I’m aware of the many factors that can affect how your color will look from monitor to paper, but just want to have the best fighting chance for things to go well and haven’t ever sent a Krita file to press.

Great information and advice. I have a background in 4c printing, but just learned about giclée printing so thank you so much for your response.

[PK1]

The only thing out of your control is how well versed the printer is in color managing and the bad part is, even if you do everything right, a bad vendor can ruin all your effort. On your end, if you really want absolutely accurate color one should invest in a monitor calibration device like a Spyder or i1 (there are quite a few, ranging from inexpensive to very expensive. From what I’ve read, even the inexpensive ones will do a good job (check reviews!) and be adequate for most people.

[vanilla]

The sad thing about printers is if you select them based on low cost, you get what you pay for and it usually doesn’t include responsive and knowledgeable cs.

I did just order a ProArt Display PA278QV 27" 16:9 Adaptive-Sync IPS Monitor. It will surely be an improvement over what I have presently.
I see that there is a cheap Spyder for $129 that I can always get if needed. Thanks for the suggestion.

This won’t help when you are trying to match colors for print, but if you suspect your monitor is off, which I know mine are, I watched a video suggesting a neat little trick which is to use your phone display to calibrate your monitor. Of course this isn’t a really great fix, but if you have a decent phone you can use it as a reference for editing monitor calibration. How to CALIBRATE a MONITOR without a colorimeter - YouTube