urgent Help Color/tone/ corrections in RGB before CMYK

[wizzkids]

We urgently req photoshop professional advice - problem = were working on a photo picture book publication containing 180 aerial col images - were have the images building up in photoshop after scanning (all are RGB)they re now awaiting color/tone/ sharpening adjustments - were hearing so may conflicting ways to proceed from here about converting the images first to cmyk then color correct and sharpen them up or leave them RGB color correct and sharpen then convert to cmyk last ! does anybody know which way we should handle them from here

and how do we convert the images to cmyk? is it as simple as MODE/rgb to cmyk or is there more to it than that?

will we lose much in the way of detail ? will there be a great noted change in color in what we see?
and whats flattening mean.?

our printing house says cmyk convert 1st then color correct etc ? what should we do? are they right?

180 pictures take so much time weve already had to re do them again and we can,t lose any more time on mistakes

any help would be greatfully recieved by our team. Stef

 

[thombathe]

Hi Stef
I myself would first convert to CMYK and yes thats mode CMYK
thats all there is to it. You will lose a little when you convert
but thats the nature of the beast, but and there always is a but
If your using photoshop 7 you may want to use auto color and
you must be in RGB mode to use this so in this case I would use
auto color then convert to CMYK and fine tune the image.
As far as flatting you can flatten the layers but rember you can not
go back after you save.
And do not switch back to rgb after tou change to CMYK.
I hope this helps, go to my site I have links that may be of use to you.

Thom

The longest jounney starts with the first step.

http://www.thombathe.com

 

[blueark]

There's also a school of thought that recommends doing most of the color correction in RGB mode, and it has a lot of merit. When you convert to CMYK, the color gamut is reduced considerably, which means that image information is lost. It's not always a big deal, but it depends on your image.

The theory is that you work in RGB, turn on View > Gamut Warning to see where problems will arise, and color correct your image until those areas are reduced. That will give you the most control over how the conversion process will take place.

Having said that, unless you are particularly fussy about quality (such as a professional photographer), you probably won't need that level of control. Converting to CMYK first is perfectly fine for most jobs, and using curves directly after will solve most problems.

 

[wizzkids]

We really appreciate your quick response and cheers for the advice - were now trying these methods - nice one from the valleypeople team .

Stef