> RGB: sRGB IEC61966-21 > CMYK: Euroscale Coated v2 >
This is what some may term Default, but others may call it prefered. In Photoshop, this is not the default. Photoshop defaults to using Adobe RGB as default RGB profile. On the same hand, you have a term "prefered" or "recommended" and this is true only for Europe where Euroscale Coated v2 (or FOGRA) is the most common CMYK profile. So, as others have already said many times, there is no such thing as a Default if you look at the industry as a whole. Individual software may already have some Default settings (like Photoshop's Adobe RGB and US Web Coated SWOP, or whatever it is called anyway). IOW, there are only software defaults, industry recommendations, and last but not least, individual designer's / prepress operator's preferences. Individual preferences describe the techniques and methods that work for some, and it depends on their experience. I know of a person who actually adjusts brightness / contrast / RGB gain of his monitor based on proofs from a printer and works without utilizing ICC profiles. This method works for him. Others may prefer a perfectly profiled/calibrated monitors and using ICC profiles. It all depends on what works best for you. Apart from this phylosophical babbling by myself, I guess your problem is much simpler if you avoid using sensitive and ill-defined terms such as "default conversion". With GIMP 2.3.14, it is possible to open an image with embedded ICC profile and use some form of color management, but only in RGB space. There is also a plugin called Separate, which can convert an image into CMYK space using input and output ICC profiles. Basically, you can edit an image in RGB space by choosing an sRGB working profile and choosing to convert an image to sRGB when you open it. The image can then be converted to Euroscale Coated v2 if you have the profile, and using Separate. As a side note, Separate can create a simulated CMYK image (using some layer transparency tricks) and *cannot* be easily edited in CMYK mode. The separated file can be saved as XCF for later edits, or exported as color-managed CMYK TIFF image for use in Scribus. The resulting TIFF can be imported into Scribus. The only downside of GIMP's own CMS is that it doesn't support black point compensation, so some darker images will look... well... awful in Print simulation mode. Also, the output of Separate plugin and GIMP's print simulation is not the same. They differ a lot. However, Separate is considered fairly accurate. Another image editing tool on Linux is Krita. It supports full color management in 16-bit per channel, but its editing capabilities aren't that great. You can, of course, edit the image in GIMP and convert it to CMYK using Krita. But that will not always work, because Krita is not so reliable (at least in my modest experience with Krita). Another way is to just save the image as RGB, and import it straight into Scribus. Scribus will then convert the image into CMYK space at PDF export if you chose to do so. BR Branko
