FILE CREATION 6LULU BOOK CREATION GUIDE
Document Color Setup
RGB is an additive process, meaning it adds red, green and blue
together in varying amounts to produce other colors. CMYK is a
subtractive process that uses dierent amounts of cyan, magenta,
yellow and black to remove reflected colors from paper to create
other colors.
Printing uses CMYK, while RGB is used to display colors on screens.
Luckily, advances in printing workflows have eliminated the
necessity of converting from RGB to CMYK. For most projects,
either color space will print without issue.
Why are the Adobe InDesign templates set up in RGB?
Modern workflows, like our process at Lulu, allow printers to use
color profiles that automatically match CMYK ink to RGB values
to produce results that are similar. Following these few simple
guidelines will ensure the best color in your book:
1. If you’re starting from scratch, set up your document as an
RGB file.
2. Use the sRGB color space in your RGB document color profile
and apply the sRGB color space to any RGB images or links
before you make your print-ready PDF.
3. If you’ve already created or converted your file to CMYK and
converted any images to CMYK, keep it in CMYK and do not
switch back to RGB.
4. Solid blacks will print solid at 100% with no other colors added.
If you add color to improve the richness of the black, TAC
(total area coverage) should never exceed 270%.
5. Tint variation is dicult to control in light color (20% or less)
designs.
6. Black & white images should have the color space set to
grayscale.