Which CMYK Profile Should I Use?

To get the best predictable results when sending your designs/photos for commercial offset printing you need to select a suitable CMYK profile that best matches the destination printing conditions before converting images to CMYK. Graphic design software such as Adobe's Creative Suite (Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator) come with ICC profile presets for sheetfed and web offset presses and various coated and uncoated paper types. There are profiles for North America, Europe and Japan who each have different printing standards.

Example screenshot of Photoshop's "Convert to Profile" CMYK options:

Printing in the UK and Europe

The international standard ISO 12647/2-2004 is being used by more and more printers in the UK and Europe these days. The German printing research organisation (FOGRA) developed this standard by testing a large number of presses using a range of paper types and produced a set of datasets. These were then used to create the ICC profiles 'ISO coated.icc' and 'ISO web coated.icc' for sheetfed litho on coated papers, and web offset on lightweight coated, respectfully (FOGRA27).

These CMYK profiles have now been replaced with a new Version-2 update based on a new FOGRA39 dataset: as not all printers were able to reproduce the same results. Version 2 solves this problem and makes it easier for printers to achieve this standard. If you are using older versions of Adobe software then it is likely that you do not have the new profiles installed, unless you have manually updated them yourself. There is a link below so you can download the latest versions from ECI.

FOGRA39

Print setup: Offset commercial and specialty printing according to ISO 12647-2:2004 / Amd 1.
Paper types 1 or 2 (gloss or matte coated 115 g/m2).
Positive plates.
Screen frequency 60/cm.

CMYK Profiles:
'ISO coated v2 (ECI)' for sheetfed offset on coated papers (Coated FOGRA39) with TAC (Total Area Coverage) of 330%.
'ISO coated v2 300% (ECI)' with a reduced TAC of 300% for web offset printing on whiter web offset papers.

These two profiles are available to download from the ECI website.

'ISO coated v2 300% (ECI)' can be used when the intended printing condition is not yet known. A lot a printers prefer to keep the TAC to below 300% even for sheetfed offset on coated papers, to avoid printing problems caused by too high ink coverage. Better to have too little than have too much ink! However, if this profile is used, and the press has a higher TAC, then photographs will print lighter in the shadow areas.

Printing in the US

For sheetfed litho printing in North America the GRACoL (General Requirements for Applications in Commercial Offset Lithography) setup is becoming popular for printing on coated paper.

CMYK Profiles:
'Coated GRACoL 2006' - for grade 1 paper on a sheetfed press with a TAC of 340%.
For web offset production, then the SWOP (Specifications for Web Offset Publications) setup is used for printing on lightweight papers.

CMYK Profiles:
'Web Coated SWOP 2006 Grade 3 Paper' - TAC 310%.
'Web Coated SWOP 2006 Grade 5 Paper' - TAC 300%.

Choose one of these three ICC profiles if you know the type of press and paper type. If not, then it is safer to go with 'Web Coated SWOP 2006 Grade 5 Paper' as it has a TAC of 300%. As mentioned above it is better to have too little ink than too much. However, if this profile is used, and the press has a higher TAC, then photos will print out slightly lighter in the shadows.

*Posted from NE14 Design UK article at http://www.ne14design.co.uk/articles/which-cmyk-profile.htm