Solving Inkscape's Biggest Problem: CMYK

Inkscape is an incredible piece of software that I've been using for over a decade to create designs for myself and my clients as much as I love Inkscape though there's one particular problem that has it I'll be addressing in this video and I'll also be going over some solutions for working around it as well [Music] this is Nick with logos by Nick comm and in this video I'll be discussing how you can work around ink scapes in ability to generate files with the CMYK color profile and if you'd like to learn more about how Inkscape works be sure to check out my Inkscape masterclass it's a collection of over 60 videos where I go over every tool and feature in Inkscape and I explain what it is and demonstrate how it works I'll have a link in the description of the video if you want to check that out so one of the biggest downsides of working with Inkscape is its inability to generate files with the CMYK color profile this is problematic when designing things for prints because the only colors that can be generated with ink are colors that are within the CMYK color space Inkscape by default works within the RGB color space these are colors that are generated using light and are intended for use on screens and other electronics with digital displays because of that the RGB color space has a wider range of colors to work with than CMYK does because light can be used to generate more colors than ink n so if you create a design with Inkscape then you go to print it chances are you're going to be using colors that are out of gamut or in other words not within the range of what can be created with ink most print shops will refuse to print your document if this is the case because they know that you're not going to be happy with the result now you may think to yourself okay I'll just use colors that are within the CMYK color space that it should be fine right well not exactly it's a little more complicated than just using CMYK colors every document has a color profile embedded within it and if you created that document with Inkscape then it's going to have an RGB profile because that's the only format Inkscape supports the problem with printing an RGB document is that you're taking colors that were originally generated using light and trying to reproduce them with ink this usually results in their finished printed product having colors that look dull and muddy and just overall different than they did on your screen when you design them even if you made sure to only use colors that work within the CMYK color space it's just not possible for something to look the same in print as it does on your screen if you're creating it in an RGB color profile and because of that a lot of print shops will immediately turn down your document if they see that it has an RGB profile embedded now some print shops will do a spot conversion and adjust the colors for you this is actually becoming a lot more common and a good example of this would be Vista Print I've printed RGB documents with them in the past and the results were actually pretty good but they weren't perfect the best way to ensure that your design will look the same in print as it does on your device is to make sure that your document is using a CMYK color profile in illustrator this can be done by going to file document color mode and choosing CMYK color an affinity designer this can be done by going to file document setup clicking on the color tab and choosing CMYK from the color format drop-down Inkscape however lacks the ability to do this and it's one of the biggest downsides of working with it in my opinion designing things for print is just going to be more challenging in Inkscape but it's not impossible there are some workarounds for creating a CMYK document from your Inkscape designs and I'd like to share some of them with you in this video now I must warn you in advance that these methods are far from perfect but they will get the job done and they are better than nothing if you're a Linux user there's a third-party extension that you can install for Inkscape that will allow you to export PDF documents with a CMYK color profile the extension is called export PDF CMYK and I'll have a link in the description for those of you who are linux users and want to try it out I haven't tried it myself but I've heard good things the benefit of using something like this is that it allows you to export your design in an editable vector format where you can manually adjust the DPI which is also important for printing documents the downside though is that you can only export a PDF document so if your print shop requires a rasterized format like jpg or TI F you're out of luck the other downside is that it's only for Linux users so those of us on Windows and Mac are also out of luck Scribus is an open-source application for desktop publishing similar to Adobe InDesign and it's available for all three operating systems one great thing about Scribus is that it allows you to open PDF documents that were originally created with Inkscape and manually change the colors based on a CMYK color profile then once you're done you can export your design as a PDF document and you will now have a print ready document with a CMYK color profile embedded I made an entire tutorial about how to do this a few years ago if you want to check that out I'll have it linked into the description of the video much like the Linux extension the upside of using Scribus is that you can get an editable vector format that most print shops overwhelmingly accept the downside though is that this only works on pure vector pads if your design uses a lot of Inkscape specific features like Gaussian blurs masking clipped objects filters and so on they're not going to translate over to Scribus unfortunately in that case you'll have to generate a rasterized PNG file and use a different solution Krita is an open-source design application that functions sort of like a hybrid between Inkscape and it allows you to work with and create vector objects but it also allows you to paint and manipulate images as well one major benefit of use in Krita is that it has the ability to export CMYK documents already built-in there is a catch though you won't be able to export your design in a vector format like SVG or PDF credit does allow you to export in these formats but unfortunately your document will be forced into having an RGB color profile Krita is ideal if you need a flattened raster format like PNG jpg and TI F those formats can be exported with the CMYK color profile to do so first export your design from Inkscape as a PNG file then open it up with credit then navigate to image properties and under the image color space tab select the CMYK option from the model drop-down from there you can export your design in any restor format and it will have a print ready CMYK color profile embedded another way that you can convert your Inkscape document to CMYK is to use a web-based color conversion service there's a lot of them out there but the one I'm most familiar with would be RGB to CMYK org this allows you to take a PNG file that you exported from Inkscape and convert it to either jpg or TI F format with the CMYK color profile embedded the benefit of using a site like this is that it's quick and convenient and you won't have to download any additional software the downside though is that you're limited to only those two formats and another problem I've noticed with web-based converters like this is that they tend to produce inconsistent results and you don't get to see how the final design looks before saving it I've had instances where the final design looks so different from the original in terms of color that it was hardly usable the final solution for generating a CMYK document from your Inkscape design is to simply save it as an SVG file then open it up with illustrator or affinity designer and correct the colors yourself personally I think this is the best way to approach the CMYK problem as an Inkscape user because it gives you the most control with all of the other methods I discussed you're basically just taking your document and swapping out the color profile without ever having an opportunity to correct your colors once they've been converted illustrator allows you to do that though and I have an entire tutorial about converting RGB colors to CMYK while maintaining their vibrance on my other channel if you want to check that out I'll have that link in the description as well this is actually what I do myself since Inkscape is the software I'm most familiar with it's what I use for most of my design work and that does include designs that are made for print once I'm finished creating my design in Inkscape I simply open it up with illustrator set the color mode to CMYK adjust the colors as needed and then export it to whatever format I'd like and that's another benefit of using this approach you're not confined to just PDF or just jpg you can save your work in any format imaginable and it'll have a CMYK color profile embedded you can even save your work directly as an illustrator file which believe it or not some print shops do require the same can be done with affinity designer as well just open your Inkscape SVG change the document color mode to CMYK adjust your colors as needed then save your work to whatever format you'd like I understand that these two applications are not free and because of that this may not be a feasible option for some of you until Inkscape implements some kind of support for CMYK this is the best option we have and I would highly recommend it if you are in a position to acquire one of these two programs if not that any of the other methods that were discussed in this video should work just fine that should do it for today's video if you have any questions leave a comment below and as always thanks for watching [Music] [Music]

Channel: Logos By Nick

Views: 70,393

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Id: B_lFwSJePcI

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 18 2020