Quark Forums

When you place tagged RGB images in Quark XPress and export your layout as a pdf file with the option color mode "composite" and setup "as is", inside the pdf file the images aren't tagged any more! Is there a possibility, such as "Profile Inclusion Policy" with Indesign?
When you use "as is" you can do your colorconversion later in the pdf workflow, such as Prinect from Heidelberg we use. Unfortunately, when you lose all your profile information when you export your layout as a pdf, then you must guess with profile could be used!

Hi Bart,

as QuarkXPress doesn't support a native PDF export and PostScript, which is used as a interim means, doesn't support ICC based color space definitions, this aim isn't easy to achieve for Quark.

If you're using "AsIs" output mode you have at least to activate its sub-option "Device independent color". This gives you calibrated color spaces inside the PostScript code (i.e. PostScript Color Space Arrays aka CSAs). Inside the PDF file these will show up as Lab or ICCBased color spaces.
But it isn't the same as a natively exported PDF (as Adobe InDesign does) which really would include the original ICC profile data embedded inside the placed images or set up as working color space profile. In the case of QuarkXPress the ICCBased color space inside the PDF is just created based on the PostScript CSA inside the PostScript file. From a quality point of view there's not too much difference in comparision to a native PDF. But at least one big drawback is that the name of the original ICC profile can no longer be determed inside the PDF file (instead a generic name is used). Therefore it's impossible for a color management solution to recognize whether the correct source profile is used or not.

Hi Robert,

Under Preferences - Default Print Layout - Color Manager - Color engine you have the following 3 choices:

Automatic - Colorsync - Kodak - LogoSync.

From Adobe you can recently download the Adobe Color Management Module.
See: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3618

The CMM can be used by applications that support selection of third-party CMMs. It can also be integrated into workflows using custom software to access the CMM APIs.

Unfortunately, after installing the Adobe CMM, it's not possible to choose that CMM from the Quark Application! Is this a known issue?

At the moment, what's the best color engine you can choose, so you have about the same color conversion ouput as Photoshop?