255 Palette Problem

I have recently stumbled upon a problem I cannot correct. I am using Corel 11 and although I have the default CMYK palette selected, all the colors ( for CorelDraw and PhotoPaint) are in 255 percentages as opposed to the 100% CMYK model. I must have inadverdently selected this color mode but cannot figure out how to revert back to the 100% model. This makes it impossible to determine the exact color you want based on CMYK percentages. I know this is a RGB model but all colors are displayed in CMYK ex. C- 233 M- 122 Y- 114 K- 155. Has anyone else encountered this problem and been able to fix it. I have been using Corel for 10 years and never had this occur before. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Mike

If you select 90% Gray from your Default CYMK Palette and then click the fill dialog what values does it show for CYM and K?  It should say 0 0 0 90. Can you check this and report back?

Rikk,  Thanks for your reply and suggestions.  When selecting 90% Gray from the default CMYK palette it says it is 230% K.  Also your suggestion of restarting the program and holding the F8 key does not correct the problem.  It remains a mystery.

Mike

Try this. There are two palettes, CorelDRW.cpl and CorelPNT.cpl.  Find them on your hard drive via the Open Palette Menu. Right Click on them and see what size they are down to the last byte. They should be slightly different in size.  I am wondering if yours are the same size or if they differ by 60 bytes or so.

 If they are the same size, I have a wild hunch that either a palette is corrupt or that the RGB palette was saved over the CYMK.  I have no basis for this-just a suspicion. 

Let me know what you find.

Mike:

The CMYK values are not expressed as percentages (0-100%), but are decimal representation of 8-bit binary numbers. The minimum and maximum 8-bit binary number, when translated to a decimal number, range from 0 to 255. A decimal number of 127 is the nearest mid-point in the range. Ergo, for each of the colors, C, M, Y and K, there are 256 steps of color density (0 to 255 equals 256 total steps).

If you absolutely have to work in percentages while using CMYK colors, then you have to do some simple math to convert the 8-bit number into percentages. (Or percentages into the 8-bit number.)

Hope that helps you a little. 

I beg to differ. Accepted practice is to express CYMK In percentages of ink. I have never seen it expressed in anything but a scale from 0-100. I just checked Draw and PhotoPaint X3, Photoshop, Illustrator CS3 and Ventura 10. CYMK appears to have a scale from 0-100 in each of these applications. I even poked around for a way to change any of these programs to a 0-255 scale and came up with nada.

I have marketing specs from various companies on file which express colors in terms of percentages of CYMK for their respective logos. I have never seen CYMK expressed on a scale from 0-255. 

I still think there is something wrong with the color palette.

Normally, in Corel, the CMYK are shown as percentages (scale 0-100). The values are converted to/from the 0-255, 8-bit numbering by the software. To see what I mean about the scale being 0-255, obtain the (free) utility, Pixie, from Nattyware. When you run that, it will give the the color values at the tip of the cursor, wherever on the screen the cursor is at. The color values are presented in Hexadecimal and decimal values and in the scales of Hex, HTML, RGB, CMYK and HSV. When you have the cursor on a color, especially a saturated color, you will see the CMYK value being expressed in 0-255 scale, not as a percentage.

Incidently, handy little tool. Helped me out of a couple of color jams, in the past, especially when trying to match colors from one file (not necessarily Corel) to a drawing being worked upon.

 

To show CMYK in percentages in CorelDRAW X3

 

1. Go to Tools >> Color Management
2. Click the Moniter icon to open the "Advanced Display Settings" dialog box
3. Check the "Show CMYK in percentages" option

 

 

I think this applies to CorelDRAW 11 too...

Thank you very much, I was going crazy trying to figure this one out

Anytime…

I appreciate that your first post on these forums is to give thanks :)

Thank you