Question about getting color from unmanaged to color managed program

[Ruahrc]

I have a question about colors and getting a particular color from one (non color managed) application into another (color managed) one.

I am making a poster in Indesign. There is a logo graphic that I have on the poster which is a certain shade of blue. The logo is an EPS file in the CMYK colorspace.

I want to make some other elements of the poster that same color (some graphs), but unfortunately I have to use a windows application to make those graphs. That windows application is running in VMWare Fusion on Windows XP, and can't do CMYK (I can only use the standard windows color selection dialog). Suffice it to say that I don't think the windows application (or XP itself) is color managed either.

I tried using the color picker tool to sample the blue I want from the logo, and then copied those RGB values into the windows application where I made my graphs. When I export those graphs (as EPS files) and put them into Indesign, however, the color of blue has changed. I'm not sure if it was due to the RGB>CMYK conversion, or if color management issues are screwing it up.

Using the digitalcolormeter application in OS X I can see that the display value of the blue on the graph in the windows application is exactly what I typed in for the RGB values, but those values are different than both how that same graph shows up when placed in Indesign, and also what the original blue logo's color shows up as.

Owing to the lack of color management in the windows application, is this a hopeless effort? Maybe I should just find new colors to use instead...

Ruahrc

 

[citizenzen]

When I export those graphs (as EPS files) and put them into Indesign, however, the color of blue has changed.

Once the file is an EPS it should be openable by Illustrator or at least Photoshop. I'd look at opening the file in one of those programs and dealing with the color then.

 

[MisterMe]

... but unfortunately I have to use a windows application to make those graphs. ...

There are too many spectacular graphing applications on the Mac for me to believe that the job can be performed only by using Windows. What is forcing you to use a Windows application to make graphs?

 

[Ruahrc]

The windows application is called Origin. It's a pretty standard tool used for scientific work.

It's not so much the making graphs as the data analysis tools Origin offers that makes it useful. There are some mac analogues but I have not had the chance to explore/learn them yet. In addition, my department has a license for Origin so I can use it free on my work computer whereas I would need to purchase the other programs.

Someday, I will probably try to transition away from Origin and get into a fully mac-centric workflow, but there will always be one or two windows-only programs I will need to access. In fact this poster was the first test run of using Indesign and Illustrator to prepare my posters instead of using MS Powerpoint, which was starting to show some limitations for what I was trying to get it to do. One major software transition at a time...

I was able to open the EPS graphs in Illustrator, covert them to CMYK, and recolor the certain lines I wanted. This method is a bit of a kludge (not at least partially due to my inexperience with Indesign + Illustrator) but seemed to work out in the end.

Ruahrc

 

[MisterMe]

The windows application is called Origin. It's a pretty standard tool used for scientific work.

It's not so much the making graphs as the data analysis tools Origin offers that makes it useful. There are some mac analogues but I have not had the chance to explore/learn them yet. In addition, my department has a license for Origin so I can use it free on my work computer whereas I would need to purchase the other programs.

...

Origin, huh? Origin is standard for Windows users. However, it is incredibly expensive--and not worth the money. If you like bloatware, then there are graphing applications for MacOS X that are inspired by Origin. QtiPlot is low-cost. Veusz is free. However, any decent graphing application features a substantial suite of data analysis functions. There have been several excellent graphing applications on the Mac before Origin existed.

 

[Ruahrc]

Thanks for those alternative suggestions. But like I said, Origin costs nothing to me or my advisor because the department has already paid for it. And I'm not sure either of those applications have color management in them either. Origin is not actually that bad a software to use, just as good or better than a couple of the OS X packages I have seen, and has some good graphing features useful for preparing manuscripts. Another catch is that my advisor is a windows user, and knows origin. It makes it a little easier sometimes to have that interoperability.

And like I also said, one major software change at a time . I need to familiarize myself with Adobe first (talk about expensive bloatware).

Ruahrc