CMYK PDF Export

[EnigmaState]

Hi, ive got a project that ive building in 2.10 and when exporting it needs to be in PDF 300dpi CMYK.
Ive installed the colour palette in order to view it in CMYK. Ive also got 2.99 installed too.


What im wondering is how is it possible for me to export to PDF with the CMYK colour scheme? Unfortunately I cannot export to PNG or any other format as this file is going to be printed for a vinyl record sleeve so has to be PDF.

Its been a whole learning curve for me this and im right at the end but didnt realise the CMYK thing so now trying to get my head around how I can do this.

Any help would be immense!

[Krikor]

(06-08-2023, 01:32 PM)EnigmaState Wrote: Hi, ive got a project that ive building in 2.10 and when exporting it needs to be in PDF 300dpi CMYK.
Ive installed the colour palette in order to view it in CMYK. Ive also got 2.99 installed too.


What im wondering is how is it possible for me to export to PDF with the CMYK colour scheme? Unfortunately I cannot export to PNG or any other format as this file is going to be printed for a vinyl record sleeve so has to be PDF.

Its been a whole learning curve for me this and im right at the end but didnt realise the CMYK thing so now trying to get my head around how I can do this.

Any help would be immense!

Just an initial comment here, I suggest waiting for rich2005's opinion which will be more technical and possibly the best suggestion.

Having said this:
1st - Gimp works in RGB format, not in CMYK.
2nd - I read somewhere that the .PDFs generated by Gimp are too big.

The idea then would be that you use either Krita or Scribus to work with CMYK and to create the .PDF

[EnigmaState]

Out of the blue someone has sorted it for me. 
Was told to export the project as PSD and then they opened that file up in PS and was able to export it as CMYK PDF.

Would still be interested in finding out how you can do this though so I can do it myself

[rich2005]

OK. You have PS, no need for GIMP. Start your project in CMYK and proceed.

A CMYK PDF ? It is a bit of a can-of-worms

First an outline of what is possible.

Gimp 2.10 is an RGB editor. However using the CYAN plugin you can export a jpeg/tif/psd CMYK image but not PDF

Gimp 2.99 edits in RGB same as Gimp 2.10 but can export a jpg or tif to a CMYK image (but stick with tif, for the moment) but not PDF

Krita http://www.krita.org is great for converting RGB -> CMYK but does not export to PDF and it is a big application just for conversions. Still worth considering. Start and finish your image in CMYK mode.

Scribus http://www.Scribus.net is a Desktop Publishing program. Feed it a CMYK image from one of the above and it can produce a good PDF. There is a big learning curve.

What can you do for a quick result ?

Save your work first as a .xcf (Gimp does make large PDF's nothing wrong with them except internal compression is low.)

Export that to a jpeg or png. Use an online converter jpg2pdf.com / png2pdf.com

Then another online convert https://www.i2pdf.com/pdf-to-cmyk