# developing for CMYK



## AlisonTB (Nov 15, 2012)

Is there a color preset for CMYK? I manage photos for a printing group who wants to do the color correcting in the CMYK space; I'd like to make it so they don't have to go to Photoshop to do it.


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## Mark Sirota (Nov 16, 2012)

I'm not certain what you mean by a "color preset", but the answer is no -- Lightroom does not directly support CMYK workflows. You will need something else, perhaps Photoshop, to convert and proof.


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## AlisonTB (Nov 16, 2012)

thanks, that what I thought. but is there a way to set the color sliders to match the standard CMYK that designers, and other graphic people use?


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 16, 2012)

Short answer Alison - no.  But if you give them a good quality RGB file, they should be able to convert it to their chosen CMYK space quite happily.


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## carson (Nov 17, 2012)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Short answer Alison - no.  But if you give them a good quality RGB file, they should be able to convert it to their chosen CMYK space quite happily.



That's not always true Victoria, I was working with a gallery wrap supplier  who used CMYK awhile back, I won't mention the name but anyone interested can contact me off line and I'll be happy to dish the dirt. Any I bent over backwards to work with them to get consistent wraps but was never able to get any results anywhere near consistent. I finally just gave up and won't deal with anyone who prints with CMYK.

I think that there are a couple of issues here, one is that there are so many different CMYK spaces, and two, I don't honestly remember the colors involved, but I believe that green was one that CMYK just doesn't handle very well. All of the greens came back very dark and blurry, so I had to get them reprinted and specifically ask them to lighten the prints. The problem was there was no empirical data that I could supply that would be me consistent results every time.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 17, 2012)

Fair point Carson.  Since Alison mentioned that they wanted to colour correct in CMYK, I assumed that they'd be adjusting to their taste rather than trying to reproduce the original.  I'd avoid photo printers who only use CMYK too though.


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