CMYK Support crowdfunding

[liviux]

Hi,

I've been a professional illustrator and illustration teacher for many years, running my business by using mainly FOSS software. I'm a huge fan of Inkscape and I used it several times for real commissions, but we all know that since Inkscape does not support CMYK it cannot be used for print solutions. This limits massively the professional use of the software and to me, it represents its biggest problem.

Off course I tried all the alternatives, and none of the solution currently available (plugin, ghostscript, Scribus) is really stable and fits into a professional workflow with back and forth and modifications by the client.

I don't know if this forum is red by any of the official developers of Inkscape, but I always wanted to know why it is so hard to implement the CMYK support. I would like to ask you some questions:

1)I would like to submit a proposal: I can volunteer to organize a fundraising campaign that has the CMYK support as the final goal. I regularly make money by using Inkscape so I can donate to the project, and I think many graphic designers around the world would be happy to do the same for having this issue solved. If I do so, would you accept?
2) If you had to provide an estimation, how much money and time would you need to add CMYK support?

Please tell me if there is a better place to ask this kind of questions or get in contact with the core team.
Any feedback about this idea would be welcome.

Regards,

[brynn]

There is a relatively new extension for this, but I guess I hear you saying the workflow isn't appropriate for professional use?  https://inkscape.org/~wout/★output-pro

I think I saw some discussion in a gitlab Issue about this.  Let's see if I can find it....

Ah-ha!  https://gitlab.com/inkscape/vectors/general/issues/45  I didn't read the whole thing, but just skimming though, it looks like there are links to some other places where you can find info, or maybe even get involved.

Yes, it's true that Inkscape developers rarely participate in forums.  If you'd like to contact them, you might want to start a discussion thread on the mailing list.  That's the best way to have a community wide discussion.  You'll want the Devel list:  https://inkscape.org/community/mailing-lists/  There are also chatrooms where you can reach devs, but of course you never know if the people you need are online when you are.  But once you're in touch, you could switch to real-time chat.  IRC:  https://inkscape.org/community/discussion/ and/or RocketChat:  https://chat.inkscape.org/

[liviux]

Hi Brynn,

Many many thanks for your reply. I was not aware of the Output Pro plugin and astonishingly it seems to work very well! What I considered not adapted to a professional workflow was the two solutions described here (Ghostscript and export-pdf-cmyk plugin)

http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/ExportPDFCMYK

And also the solution proposed by Nick Saporito here (it works technically but it's impossible to apply with a complex design and if the client asks many modifications):



I skimmed through the GitLab discussion and I will read it carefully. It seems that many people are concerned bu the issue, so this is definitely a good news.

Thank you again,

[Moini]

Please ask this on the Inkscape Board / Inkscape development mailing lists. Bryce (head of the board) is involved with writing up a proposal for the work that would need to be done and would have the best overview.

https://inkscape.org/community/mailing-lists/

Inkscape has a 'funded projects' thing which offers a funding model that almost exactly matches what you suggest, see https://inkscape.org/support-us/funded-development/ - we never used it up to now, though.

The gitlab discussion got a bit off-rails, unfortunately, because people involved themselves who had a very restricted view of what is needed.

[TimiZero]

  Sorry for off topic (and do not mean to be rude), but I think one major problem for Inkscape to not able to have CMYK support is because of having SVG as their default file format. It's just my opinion though, but I think it would be a lot easier if they have different file extension, let say .ink for example. Then it wouldn't be conflict to conforming SVG specs, as we know is meant for web (thus RGB color).

While since long ago we can have the "CMS hack" to somehow embed CNYK color value via ICC profile import feature in Inkscape, I wonder how to differentiate standard/normal svg with "svg with cmyk hack". Let alone that feature itself doesn't work reliably as far as what I have tried. Therefore I have lose hope for developer to implement CMYK unless they could do something with native file extension. Or maybe hopefully by somehow introducing SVG for printing?

There are however other open source projects that have potential to solve this though, like SK1 project (but the development is not that fast and still in release candidate state) and Krita that have capability of vector drawing and CMYK support from ground up but still don't export in vector format. For now I personally prefer Scribus for providing print file formats, but to edit vector from there is pain in the a** so I only use it in the final conversion.

And also the solution proposed by Nick Saporito here (it works technically but it's impossible to apply with a complex design and if the client asks many modifications):

To be honest, watching that video makes me feel that doing the conversion is too much of hassle  . While in reality it could be done in a more productive way, provided that you are willing to change your workflow a bit. 

[Moini]

https://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/color.html

[brynn]

Yes, liviux, true CMYK print model has probably been the most requested new feature for years now!

I'm sure both of your and TimiZero's perspectives would be welcome and helpful in a community discussion.  I would urge you both to find ways to join the discussion.

[TimiZero]

Thanks for the link Moini! It would be nice if you could just say your point.

I assumed there was mistake on my post about the "CMYK hack" thing, so please forgive me about that (as i'm more to end-user type so TBH i'm ignorance when it comes anything technical such as svg specs).

So from the link it's clear that SVG1.1 can embed ICC profile, which looks promising. But from my past experience, there's no way to tell what profile is in a file if you just open it using other app such as web browser. The colors will become all black (means it did not fallback properly to RGB?).

Then, another problem is when you're in Inkscape there's no way to tell between 2 same RGB value colors, whether it's the CMS one or the normal one unless you check on the Fill and Stroke tab. Let alone not everybody understand how to use this CMS tab (proof is on Nick's video). This could be problem for complex drawing and there will be no way to check for each fills.

I think what people expecting is more like "CMYK from ground up" kind of feature with ability to store CMYK value instead of profile. Once you set it, the softproof will turn on, non CMYK-able filters will be off....something like that. And also not to forget with CMYK mode set, all related export feature like pdf and eps should be automatically give cmyk value or at least have option on which colorspace to use.

By the way, i respect whatever decision made by the developer team. If they work on it that would be GREAT, but if they don't, I'm fine too.

EDIT:
Sorry i forgot to say this earlier, but with CMYK capability we also expect Inkscape would be able to import CMYK-based (not necessarily with ICC profile embedded) eps and pdf or even images by retaining the color values.

[Moini]

Inkscape will probably only add CMYK for export to pdf, as far as I can see in the plans we had.

Browsers not displaying files with color profiles correctly is that browser's shortcoming, and has nothing to do with Inkscape.

[TimiZero]

Inkscape will probably only add CMYK for export to pdf, as far as I can see in the plans we had.

Browsers not displaying files with color profiles correctly is that browser's shortcoming, and has nothing to do with Inkscape.

Okay that's assuring and more realistic i believe. I was not blaming inkscape, just wanted to say how sticking with SVG will make the CMYK support (as what people may expect) becoming more tougher to be realized. I'm sorry if my post sounded like I was condemning Inkscape, but in reality this is the only vector software that I use among few other open source's.

As for me, I'm fine in either way. We open source software users are blessed with options. And because of that, what void left by inkscape, can be filled by others (hopefully). I also believe there should be ways to educate designers interested in using open source software, that they should use several software sparingly and not to only stick with one specific software. This is the old mindset we have when using paid closed source software because we can't afford for many licenses.

On a side note, please fell free to correct any misinformation i might accidentally post in the forum. Sometimes, as someone outside "the team" we just say whatever comes to our mind. 

[Moini]

All I can say at this point is to keep your eyes open for news on that front - or, if you have a really deep interest in this, to team up with others to collect money and hire a programmer for putting in the features that you need, which will probably speed up the process a lot. We're short on people to do this kind of thing, but definitely, everyone in the project would tell you that, yes, they would like it if someone added that (and stayed available for maintenance).