I’m a photographer and new to the color control world. I normally live in RGB. I can’t afford any rip software’s right now unfortunately. I just did one of my first jobs and the client is asking for a control color bar. I downloaded the IDEAlliance ISO 12647-7_Control Strip 2009. If I convert my image to CMYK then place that on top in photoshop and print from my epson printer, would that be ok? Or am I doing more harm than good by sending a color bar that hasn’t gone through any rip software?
If your client is asking for a color control bar, then presumably they want that in order to measure the colors and see if the page is being printed within the limits of a printing standard. So I would ask the client - what standard they are expecting the image to be printed to. As it says on page 2 of the readme pdf for the IDEAlliance control strip: The ideal reference values for the target will depend on the color space or characterization data set being tested.
Common CMYK printing standards are:
GRACoL2006_Coated1v2
SWOP2006_Coated3v2
U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2
But we should really back up a moment. If you are going to get into the practice of adding color bars, then you are going to need to learn the process of “proofing” on your inkjet printer. Some will argue with me on this point, but it is possible to do a good job creating hard-proofs on a quality inkjet printer using the RGB driver instead of a RIP. That’s basically what your client is asking you to do - make a proof for them. If so, then you need to know what kind of printing you are “proofing to.”
