pdf CYMK Export

[Zephyrrrr]

Hi, I'm looking for a way of doing the following:

I want to send a pdf of a project containing a vignette to a commercial printer. Here's the challenge:

1. creating a vignette (I can do this with layers with a gradient from black to transparent)
   
2. saving the picture as a pdf
   
3. here's the tricky part defining the black as CYMK 40 30 30 100 (not just a straight RGB to CYMK 0 0 0 100 mapping) to give a dark black when printed by a commercial printer
   

Photoshop express won't export pdfs

Paintshop won't either

Photoshop will, but is very very expensive

Will paint.net??

I attach a rough example to show what I mean.

Any suggestions welcome whether paint.net or other systems.

Edited April 2, 2012 by Zephyrrrr

[BoltBait]

Paint.NET does not support CMYK. You really need to use Photoshop for this.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

There is a plugin to export your image as a PDF, but it uses the RGB colorspace. I've previously used it successfully to supply artwork to commercial printers.

Commercial printers are more in tune with the local market these days and can handle most file formats. I suggest you ask them if they can handle the artwork in that format (RGB PDF). Recommend you change printers if they can't!

Plugin: Im(age)pdf

[midora]

There is no simple one to one conversion between RGB and CMYK. And to make things more complex there is no standard fixed CMYK gammut. Also you have to know the absorbency of the paper, the printing conditions and press setups. So programs like photoshop have to add some additional info to the CMYK image. If you are not experienced in this area then you will use some defaults but in this case you may also create a pdf/a using the ImPDF plugin of Paint.NET and select a standard SRGB color profile.