Printing Issue - CMYK - Lost contrast

Are you converting from RGB to CMYK, or from sRGB to CMYK?
sRGB will convert more accurately. If you are printing yourself, I suggest you feed RGB files to the print driver. It knows more about what the printer
needs and its translation algorithms than you or photoshop do.

If you are converting, make sure you convert and never assign a CMYK profile to the file.

Read the thread and you'll realize the OP isn't printing him/herself. The images are being sent to an offset press.

Joe
 
Not bad, though my first magazine publication was in 1951.
I now wonder if there was a difference in practice between the UK and theUSA?

OK, so your photo experience goes back a little further than mine. And your experience then actually working in a press shop?

Joe

Now let's move on to actual good information on the topic: is colourmanagement needed in prepress and print? | colourmanagement.net

Here's the sentence that hits the nail on the head: "Unfortunately, as we know, even quite inexperienced users of ©Adobe Photoshop, perhaps designers or photographers, might feel they can "separate" RGB to make CMYK and this is most often done without any guidance, or knowledge of press destination and / or paper type. Perhaps even using Photoshop defaults." Wow! Hard to believe: even using Photoshop defaults! Oh the horror!

As I said, or at least inferred, I have no experience of print shops in the USA.
 
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Not bad, though my first magazine publication was in 1951.
I now wonder if there was a difference in practice between the UK and theUSA?

OK, so your photo experience goes back a little further than mine. And your experience then actually working in a press shop?

Joe

Now let's move on to actual good information on the topic: is colourmanagement needed in prepress and print? | colourmanagement.net

Here's the sentence that hits the nail on the head: "Unfortunately, as we know, even quite inexperienced users of ©Adobe Photoshop, perhaps designers or photographers, might feel they can "separate" RGB to make CMYK and this is most often done without any guidance, or knowledge of press destination and / or paper type. Perhaps even using Photoshop defaults." Wow! Hard to believe: even using Photoshop defaults! Oh the horror!

As I said, or at least inferred, I have no experience of print shops in the USA.
You implied, we inferred. :)
 
So after I printed more business cards with this company, they came back more saturated than the first round. Same exact files were printed and this was their response..

"Please note with CMYK four color process print that we can not guarantee exact color match and that there can be a shift in any or all of the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or Black values. I believe that the first run was a little lighter than the values and this most recent run shifted slightly darker. However, both of these results can be expected and are with in tolerance and any reprinting can have similar results as both runs. Which means that sometimes the color is going to be slightly off from each other but they will always be with in tolerance with CMYK standards."


True or false?
 
So after I printed more business cards with this company, they came back more saturated than the first round. Same exact files were printed and this was their response..

"Please note with CMYK four color process print that we can not guarantee exact color match and that there can be a shift in any or all of the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or Black values. I believe that the first run was a little lighter than the values and this most recent run shifted slightly darker. However, both of these results can be expected and are with in tolerance and any reprinting can have similar results as both runs. Which means that sometimes the color is going to be slightly off from each other but they will always be with in tolerance with CMYK standards."


True or false?

BS. What CMYK standards? Reference please. Sounds like poor quality control of press hardware plain and simple. Sounds like a budget operation that offers low prices and makes it up on the other end by not spending to control and run their hardware with tight performance tolerance.

Joe
 
False for most businesses that do calibrations and use spectrophotometric value matching to ensure proper ink densities. It could be true of the company you dealt with. It wasn't vista print by any chance was it?
Use a company with higher standards that use better equipment properly. Look for Xerox iGen presses or HP Indigo.
iGen 4 and indigo 5000 are newest models.
 
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