RGB to CMYK

[Pete Waterman]

Hi All I have PaintShop Photo Pro X3 Yes I know it's getting on a bit now? but I use Photoshop elements mainly sorry to use bad language!
My question is can PaintShop Photo Pro X3 convert from RGB to CMYK or can I work in CMYK it so frustrating seeing the colour I want on the screen & the printed work totally different?
Thanks in advance
Pete

[LeviFiction]

I'd prefer to leave this to more knowledgeable people but maybe I can get close.

No, PSP does not let you work directly in the CMYK colorspace. It does, however, have a few tools to help make sure that what you see on screen is the same as what comes out of a printer. It also has a couple of options for CMYK related functions.

PSP's Color Management options are meant to help you match colors on different devices.

If you go to File -> Color Management -> Color Management

You'll get a dialog that lets you define a profile for your monitor and your printer. These profiles tell your computer what colors look like on both the monitor and the printer and attempts to match them. The Rendering intent is used specifically for your printer. I'm afraid I don't really understand the options.

There is an option for "Proofing" along the top, the default is "Basic." Proofing lets you define a third device that you want to emulate. So if you're going to send it to another printer and have a profile for the printer you get get PSP to attempt to simulate how your colors will appear on that device to help you get close to the final result.

Of course printer profiles are bit finiky. They rely on certain ink and paper combinations. If you buy third-party inks or cheaper or different paper than recommended for your printer (which most of us do) then that throws the profile off slightly. Which is why Spyder makes so much money off of monitor and printer calibration tools.

Now as for CMYK

PSP does let you define a CMYK color space profile. If you go to File -> Color Management -> Color Workspace

You'll get the options for the RGB colorspace and the CMYK Colorspace you want associated with your currently opened image. So if you know what CMYK colorspace you want to be work with you can select it here.

Now this is very important, PSP will not import current CMYK images properly. It selects the nearest equivalent CMYK profile and uses that to interpret the colors into RGB. So some color distortion will happen when importing CMYK images into PSP. So when dealing with CMYK in PSP it's best to never start with it. Of course you can't really end with it either but I'll get to that in a second.

So PSP has a Split Channel command for CMYK, and it uses the CMYK colorspace that you selected in the Color Workspace dialog to calculate the channels.

Image -> Split Channels -> Split to CMYK.

This will let you work on the individual CMYK channels and perform any edits that you want. This is the closest we get to editing in CMYK. But this is very handy for masking, as well as repairing and editing photos.

If you then use the Combine Channels function it'll recombine the CMYK channels into a single image and convert them back to RGB. This might give a good idea of what the image will look like after a conversion to CMYK. Sort of like proofing the image.

Image -> Combine Channels -> Combine from CMYK

Now, as for ending with CMYK. Technically PSP can't end with CMYk, however PSP is able to save the CMYK color profile you're working with to TIFF images. And TIFF images only. In the Save As dialog click the "Options" button in the bottom right-hand corner and select the relevant options.

So if you're sending to a printer that likes TIFF and wants a specific color-space you can do so. Very limiting but that's what we have.

If I've said any or many things incorrectly here hopefully the more knowledgeable people will be by shortly.