: What's the point of converting RGB images to CMYK TIF/TIFF before placing them in InDesign? Currently we receive CMYK TIF/TIFF images of photographs from our design agency (who get them from

@Deb5748823

Of course it is possible and actually DESIRABLE to work in cmyk, and convert all images to CMYK for offset printing. Print your colour proofs through a RIP, and press check pages as they come off the press. It's proper colour management in CMYK.
If anyone here produces top shelf coffee table books for International photographers, they'd understand this. You can push CMYK to it's limit to get better matches of fine art limited edition colour photographs.

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@Jessie844

I think you do miss one thing here. It's a marginal thing, but still. That thing is CMYKs != RGBs workspacewise. Some colors are unreachable for RGBs that are reproducible in CMYKs and vice-versa. Most of the time you can send your works in RGB and printer's in-house color management will do all right. But there are some cases (especially in dark areas) when printer's profiles will yield extremely poor results. That's when you want to take specific workspace, tons of your experience and cover the specific areas with exactly right ammount of paint. It's also good to not to be surprised when your “reds” will go… well… somewhere else ;). I agree that it's effectively “circumventing” color management, but sometimes it's a must. Sometimes it's useful to do traps manually – it's not said RIP will do them for raster images.

Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of having my images stored using one, solid color model (none of RGBs or CMYKs to make things clear), but up to some point in my workflow. I don't like the hype “hey, do your design once, use one color model, publish it everywhere”. That's just relying on “lowest common denominator” of what your output devices can do. In the area of color conversion, CMSs are mostly able to do their job right, but what if they don't? How much out of gamut colors have you used? What's your printer's rendering intent? It's good to know what are the potential culprits, what is “safe”, when “simplifications” are acceptable and why.

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@Rivera951

You are ahead of the curve here. There is a lot of confusion about when a designer should change color modes. It is simple: Never (or as late as possible) is the best choice. Printers who want it done for them are working in bad-faith.

To put it bluntly, those who advise "view the art in the same mode in which it will be printed" are wrong for at least two (I think obvious) reasons.


A designer may never really know what the output device profile will be.
It is still impossible to preview on-screen, real cmyk.


Color is confusing. Everything is a simulation until it comes off the press. It is a crude thing to presume the final ink values needed to match color ideals for changing substrates and devices. Design experts generally have little technical understanding (so adages support their generally outdated beliefs.)

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@Michele215

Yes, CMYK results in a larger image size (it is one more channel for the file to contain), but it makes perfect sense to view the art in the same mode in which it will be printed. Adobe applications have the special "Print Preview" setting for documents for a reason. You need to speak with your printer about this. A lot of printers require CMYK to pass prepress standards for their press with 4/c color (CMYK) printing. Always check with your printer to be sure you are submitting files to the proper specs.

A color profile is a different tool than a color mode, and since RGB has a wider color gamut than CMYK, it is best to convert to CMYK to gain a better sense of what is actually going to print. Any company worth their salt will have branding guidelines that dictate the official colors in both RGB and CMYK, and there is no guarantee that it is a simple conversion. Colors will shift when moving from RGB to CMYK and the last thing anyone wants is surprises in the final product, most of all the client.

To address some specific points in the question:


Currently we receive CMYK TIF/TIFF
images of photographs from our design
agency (who get them from the
photographer).


That could be the archiving standards of the photographer or a standard set up long ago between the agency and the photographer to save on conversion time.


Our in-house designers then place them
in InDesign for posters and magazines,
or convert them to RGB to be used on
the website or in newsletters or
presentations.


That sounds pretty solid to me. That's how we handle it.


Wouldn't it be a much wiser choice to
save the retouched images as PNG
(which is lossless)?


Compression and color are two different issues. TIFFs can contain different types of compression, and Photoshop has the ability to save TIFFs with LZW compression, which is lossless. It doesn't offer the same level of compression as JPEG, but that's the balance between quality and size. As far as I know, the jury is still out on the use of PNG in print.


Also, I'm not entirely sure if our
design agency actually uses the press
profile our printers use because the
agency is in a completely different
country.


The respective countries of the agency and press have no bearing on whether or not your job will print. A press is a press is a press regardless of where it is. My company sends books to India, China, and Canada as well as domestically (US), but we still have to preflight our titles and get the occasional flag.

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@Hamm6457569

No, you aren't missing something. There is no point at all in converting images to CMYK, and several good reasons NOT to. Converting images to flattened CMYK tiff is an old QuarkXpress workflow that is a complete waste of time today, especially with InDesign.

What is a good idea is to size images in Photoshop before final output, to reduce file size and for maximum control.

If you are placing CMYK images, be certain that InDesign preferences are set so embedded color profiles are retained, otherwise you can get undesirable color shifts on PDF export. Indesign handles conversion to the destination color space at export.

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