Question about a gallery show in Seattle that made me rethink my color profiles

I was at the 'Digital Frontiers' exhibit in Seattle last spring and saw my own piece printed with weird, muddy greens. The gallery tech said they use a specific CMYK profile for their large format printer that my sRGB file didn't match. Now I always convert and soft-proof before sending anything out for physical display. What's the most reliable CMYK profile you guys use for giclee prints?

5 comments

5 Comments

reese_hayes711mo ago

Ask @anna491 about FOGRA39 for giclee, I've had better luck with US Web Coated SWOP.

aaronsullivan1mo ago

i read somewhere that some of those big giclee houses out in california actually ask for files in Adobe RGB 1998 instead of sRGB and then they do the conversion on their end which sounds way easier honestly lol. but yeah i feel you on the muddy greens thing, teal is always the first color to betray you in a bad profile swap. i've started asking every new printer what they actually use before i even send a test file, saves me from having to redo my whole proofing workflow after the fact. soft proofing is good but if their printer is calibrated different from your monitor then it's all kind of a crapshoot anyway.

blairc902mo ago

Ugh, that's the worst feeling! I had the exact same thing happen with a print for a cafe. My bright teal came out this dull gray-green mess. Total gut punch. I stick with Coated FOGRA39 now for most of my giclee work. It's become my default because it seems to match what a lot of professional printers expect. I still soft-proof like crazy, but starting there has saved me so many headaches.

anna4912mo ago

Actually FOGRA39 is for offset printing, not giclee.

the_olivia2mo ago

Yeah but @anna491, I've had giclee printers tell me they use FOGRA39 as a starting point all the time. It's not just for offset.