CMYK support in Inkscape could be a game-changer for professional print designers
A note before we begin: This week, I'm overwhelmed by the stream of news about Meta, ProtonMail, and other tech giants going mad. Instead of creating a humorous caricature or a long blog-post about it as I usually do when tech news goes chaotic, I'm shifting my focus to highlighting positive impact. This article was born out of this reflection (and also maybe, my coping mechanism).
As a digital artist and long-time user of free and libre graphic software, I'm excited to share with you a significant development that's been missing from our ecosystem: user-friendly CMYK support in Inkscape (and its CMYK PDF output).
Martin Owens, a dedicated developer, has been working tirelessly to bring this feature to life, and I think it's essential that his work gets the support it needs.
For former Adobe Illustrator (or Corel Draw) users, you know how crucial CMYK support is for print design, especially in vector. It's a feature that has kept many creatives captive to proprietary software, despite the desire to switch to free and libre alternatives. I personally suffered from this when, around 2005, I took a client to a printer and they refused to print the logo I designed because it was an RGB SVG file. That was humiliating for me as a young freelancer. Martin's work aims to change this, and I couldn't be more enthusiastic about it.
As Martin himself puts:
"[...] my work on CMYK is because my supporters asked me to. I have put myself out as an independent programmer hired by regular users to prove that users care enough about their work tools that when offered the opportunities to invest in their success, they will."
Notably, Martin was previously asked to add Multi Page support and complete the Shape Builder, demonstrating his commitment to delivering features that matter most to the community. He's been working on CMYK support because his patrons have asked him to, and he continues to do so because they continue to support him financially.
Martin's approach is not just about adding a feature, but about creating a seamless user experience. He's conducted UX design and testing sessions to ensure that the CMYK workflow is intuitive and easy to use. His goals for 2025 include delivering a PDF exporter, improving the color selector, and integrating color management information into the UI.
To make this happen, Martin relies on the support of his patrons. If you're as excited about this development as I am, please consider supporting his work on Patreon or Liberapay. Every contribution counts, and it's a great way to invest in the future of free and libre graphic software.
As someone who has published books using Scribus in CMYK PDF, I've experienced firsthand the importance of reliable CMYK support. I've battled with bugs, spent months printing costly proof tests, and wasted countless hours troubleshooting. I've also relied on Illustrator for CMYK design in the past, particularly when Inkscape wasn't up to the task 20 years ago - a limitation that led to the humiliating experience with the printer I mentioned earlier.
Before switching to Linux full-time around 2009 and shifting my focus to 2D raster image painting for concept art, comics, and illustration, I often found myself limited by Inkscape's capabilities. I wish someone had been working on a feature like this back then. Perhaps if they had, I would still be offering graphical design services today. That's why I'm eager to support Martin's efforts and encourage others to do the same through this blog post.
If you're interested in following Martin's progress, he maintains a dev log on YouTube and Peertube where he shares updates on his work. His latest video on finances was the trigger that motivated me to write this article. You'll also find a video from November that summarizes the CMYK work done in 2024 and outlines what's still to be done. A big thank you to those who will take the time to setup a support to Martin's efforts after reading this article! 💜
Links to follow/support Martin:
- Liberapay
- Patreon
- Fediverse
- Youtube
- Peertube
Artwork source here, home made for this article.
319 - 
510
53 comments
c_pra@troet.cafe
\o/ !!!
★elfi@pixie.town
this is something that has bugged me about inkscape for the longest time. Why even have page sizes for various print formats if it's still only in RGB?
★ErikUden@mastodon.de
TRUE! We need CMYK support because I'd switch away from Canva if Inkscape truly supported it. Please @inkscape ❤️❤️❤️ (we love u)
★gverdun@mamot.fr
I am sooo waiting for this too ! 😍
tanguy@tech.lgbt
Oh yay!!
★I am in my final year of graphic design school, and we're doing a lot of printing, forcing me to use Windows to use Adobe software.
I probably won't need it once it releases, but I am still extremely happy that this software is upgrading to something usable for printing!
ltlnx@g0v.social
Thanks for the coverage :ablobhearteyes: as a docs contributor myself it's incredibly satisfying to see all the work land into place.
★lutzray@mamot.fr
I know you're a geek + artist but as a physicist I didn't quite grok what is all the fuss about color representation and reproduction in tech. Our light sensing cells have three non-flat spectral responses, our electronic devices have non-linear outputs and finally our brain fucks up us all, processing this with cues from ambiant lightning when doing subtractive color synthesis. All this can be overcome with sane maths, good engineering and collaboration between vendors.🤔
ltlnx@g0v.social
@lutzray The problem lies when converting screen material to print. You may know that RGB is subtractive and CMYK is additive, so when printing we need to do the correct conversions to ensure that the colors look okay.
Also different K (shades of grey) values look different between paper textures, so that has to be accounted. When printing people often use a specific ink to print a specific color, named "spot colors" in digital software, so that also needs to be taken into account.
ltlnx@g0v.social
@lutzray that's why this is such a big deal :blobcatcoffee:
pmartin@mastodon.obspm.fr
@lutzray Most of the problem comes from the fact we work on a screen (additive colors display) in order to have a result printed on paper with ink (substractive colors display) and there is no exact translation from one to the other without taking in account specific caracteristics of your exact screen and your exact printer. So it's a 4 parameters problem (and quite complex parameters) that rely on defacto standards and needs very good engineering and maths skills to resolve.
lutzray@mamot.fr
@pmartin Je pensais que tout cela était assumé par les systèmes d'opération et les moteurs de rendu sous-jacents. Genre ColorSync + calibration d'écran + calibration du trio imprimante-encre-papier avec colorimètrie à chaque étape.
pmartin@mastodon.obspm.fr
@lutzray le problème c'est que ça touche à des morceau du système qui sont très séparés les uns des autres :
- écran géré par l'OS via la carte graphique
- impression gérée par les drivers de l'imprimante
- calibration géré… par le driver de la sonde de calibration
- interaction du graphiste avec ses couleurs… géré par le logiciel de dessin
- export du dessin dans un format final géré par une librairie rarement dev par le logiciel de dessin lui-même
-
1/2
lutzray@mamot.fr
@pmartin soupir... Je me souviens à l'époque quand on pouvait spécifier _dans le fichier produit_ qu'elle encre Pantone utiliser. Le souvenir aussi que des bricoleurs vendaient des NeXTstations pluggées à des imagesetters Linotronic pour faire le RIPing en place, à coût "nul". Ça n'a pas pris trop de temps pour que Adobe force NeXTComputer à modifier la licence...
Je me souviens quand les imprimantes étaient "Turing complete" et qu'on pouvait améliorer le RIPing 'en place'
pmartin@mastodon.obspm.fr
@lutzray Ici pour inkscape il a fallut modifier le vieux code qui ne prenait pas en compte du tout la représentation moderne des couleurs (avec profil colorimétrique et espace de couleur) mais aussi cqanger le moteur de rendu des pdf (passant au tout récent capyPDF) et intégrer de l'interface utilisateur pur permettre aux artiste de fournir leur config (colorimétrie) et faire leur choix technique (dire tel encre à tel endroit par exemple car des fois on est obligé).
2/2
rapid@fosstodon.org
was just waiting for this feature and now i am happy
brie@venera.social
And spot colours. At some point I knew some half of Pantone palette by name and number…
duckyfella@cupoftea.social
As a non artist, why is this important?
davidrevoy
@duckyfella Think of CMYK like a special language for printers. Artists need it to ensure their designs look great on paper, not just on screens. And it's not just about art - CMYK is used in millions of printed objects we use daily, from packaging to billboards. It's a crucial part of our visual world!
5 ★duckyfella@cupoftea.social
Thank you!! Is it not possible to convert RGB -> CMYK though?
davidrevoy
@duckyfella Unfortunately, it's not. A human (artist decision) has to be done.
For example, you can obtain a Black by overlaying Cyan+Magenta+Yellow. But they don't overlap perfectly because you print in pass.
13 ★So the industry came up with a Black ink cartridge, this one is economic too (better than three pass of CMY). But you can also do "rich black" by mixing Black ink and Cyan at 60% and manage this way many 'mix'.
Color on screen doesn't work the same way.
duckyfella@cupoftea.social
Holy shit, I didn’t realise colour lore went this deep. Thank you for explaining 🙏
julian@fietkau.social
@duckyfella Speaking as someone who doesn't work creatively with colors very much, but has a programming background, I found this blog post by @eeeps on color spaces very interesting: https://ericportis.com/posts/2024/okay-color-spaces/
It doesn't discuss CMYK in depth, but it goes over a lot of what makes colors both interesting and understandable. 🙂 Might be a fun read if you want to get a bit deeper into “the lore”.
duckyfella@cupoftea.social
@julian @eeeps Thanks! That was a brilliant read. I might be… a colour nerd now???
★spacehobo@teh.entar.net
@duckyfella I always used to illustrate this by saying "Black is the universal spot colour!" and then also getting to explain those.
★atro_city@fedia.io
@davidrevoy is the difference between digital and print that in digital, you can add as many colors as you like and it won't get black, but IRL, the more colors you mix, that darker it gets? Simply because of physics, you're adding more material and layering it which means less light gets through.
I don't know why Cyan Magenta and Yellow were chosen. My guess is that it they were more available and all necessary colors could be made from mixing them. My other hunch is that IRL, you can mix them more without getting as dark as RGB. But that's a buess.
davidrevoy
@atro_city @duckyfella Hey, if you are curious about it, look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtractive_color , worth a read and you'll have all info about it.
3 ★atro_city@fedia.io
@davidrevoy yes! that's what is was called. Thank you :)
★bryanredeagle@beige.party
@duckyfella RGB and CMYK don't overlap perfectly. There are some colors that are possible in one and not the other. So to make sure what you want to print is accurate, you need to be able to tell the printer the CMYK values.
★tom_clowder@meow.social
@duckyfella Short version: if it glows/emits light—as does a monitor or other video display—it’s RGB. If it reflects light that shines on it—as does everything that’s printed—it’s CMYK. If you want the actual science, look up “additive color” (glowy stuff) and “subtractive color” (non-glowy stuff).
★rzeta0@mastodon.social
@duckyfella
I'm no expert
but if I know something I'm working on needs to be printed at a professional printer - then starting the workflow in CMYK means I am more likely to use colours that can actually be printed.
Good software will only show you the available colours and not let you pick those that can't be printed via a CMYK process.
the attached colour wheels are from Affinity Designer, one with an RGB document, the other CMYK
🖼️ d62cc899b986e8ee.png 🖼️ fe1ee6839490a12a.pngduckyfella@cupoftea.social
@rzeta0 Oh that’s pretty neat!! Thank you for sharing c:
davidrevoy
@rzeta0 @duckyfella Just a note about Hue(ring)Saturation/Value(triangle) color selectors: while they are familiar to the user for color picking, they are not the best option for CMYK color picking. But many software suggest this kind of view for convenience.
The best way to work with CMYK colors is with sliders and percentages. E.g. with the Krita specific color docker, here doing a "pure CMY" color, without black ink dots in it (something a triangle with auto conversion cannot guarantee).
mond@mastodon.art
oooh yees. I was using Scribus and Inkscape but it's annoying.
★davidrevoy
@mond Same, this workaround exists since around 2010 and the best documentation about it is on the Fedora wiki, imo ( https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_set_CMYK_color_on_a_design_for_printing#Introduction )
But what a tedious process! If a client does a design/tracing decision after the CMYK export in Scribus, it's a ton of work to redo all the export pipeline.
Oh yes, so annoying indeed.
3 ★mond@mastodon.art
Yeah I remember doing an assignment were I had to do stickers and it was a lot of trial and error since I didn't had experience with Scribus before.
catagent101@blahaj.zone
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org The liberapay link in the article doesn't seem to work (the first one in the article).
christianrickert@23.social
... and for anyone producing scientific (journal) figures!
★davidrevoy
@christianrickert Oh yes. 💯 this!
echedellelr@fearness.org
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org cc @gameplayer@mrrp.chimmie.k.vu
ianrogers@mstdn.social
GIMP, too.
lutzray@mamot.fr
added Martin Owens to my patreons. Les utilisateurs du Libre devraient plus fréquemment supporter financièrement les logiciels qu'ils utilisent, pour ceux qui en ont les moyens (j'en suis).
★pmartin@mastodon.obspm.fr
That's exactly why I support Martin Owens work for years : this is the way to make things move in the right direction.
d_prieto@peoplemaking.games
wow, that's great = D
megatronicthronbanks@mastodon.social
THIS
★guayabito@mastodon.cr
that's a game changer!
★villares@ciberlandia.pt
@guayabito there should be a statue of @doctormo at the UNESCO headquarters or something. No kidding. People who fund his work are the best.
★trinsec@trinsec.org
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org You briefly mentioned ProtonMail going mad (among others)... but I'm not finding anything about them. Did I miss something here?
davidrevoy
@trinsec It looks like they deleted it, but it was about their CEO praising the future US gov
https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/113833860977088538 (more in the reply of this threads)
https://infosec.exchange/@SecurityWriter/113836878224147706 (for a post deletion thread)
Since this 'incident', protonmail are still muting themselves, afaik (edit: meaning by that: no official reply, blog post or communication about it, just the deletion)
★trinsec@trinsec.org
@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org Thank you! I totally didn't know this.
★jak@defcon.social
the good vibes you transmitting through the fediverse are incredible :-) I’ll support Martin on Inkscape because it’s a program I use a lot for work and hobby
And no: I’m not a graphic designer or an artist, but Inkscape helped me a lot for reports and diagrams:-)
★adamvs1@mastodon.world
Thanks for this! I actually did a remarkably tedious course on colour theory, in Uni, which failed to clearly explain this. After reading your blog, and the replies here, I much better understand the ramifications of RGB vs CMYK colour systems.
★Camille@mastodon.social
Merci pour l'article. Un détail : le lien vers son compte pointe vers https://www.davidrevoy.com/link au lieu de https://liberapay.com/doctormo/
davidrevoy
@Camille Oh merci d'avoir vue ça et pour le report. Oui, quand je tape je fais du markdown et ça m'arrive de faire [des liens](link) comme ça à remplacer après. Là, j'ai oublié, ça va être réparé dans 5 minutes. 💜
Post a reply
The comments are synchronised every 1h with the replies to this post on Mastodon:How to use this? (click here to unfold)
Open a new Mastodon account on the server of your choice. Then, Copy/Paste the adress above in your Mastodon 'Search' field. The post will appear and you'll be able to fully interact with it. You'll have full control of your posts: edit, remove, etc. After that, your message will appear here.
Just please note that it may take up to 1 hours for your changes to be reflected here.