My $0.02:

As of right now, your best option is to have the printer handle the conversion. Give them a nice RGB TIFF; they shouldn't have any problem converting it to CMYK. Your resulting image won't look quite as good coming from RGB as it would from something that started as CMYK, because the color spaces are a bit different, but generally it's not *that* big a deal.

The printer will probably charge a bit to do the conversion, but if they do it, it'll definately work with their production equipment. It's likely to be the simplest, most cost-effective way of getting the project done.

(That said, I have not created any book covers in the Gimp, but I *have* put together a few with Quark and Photoshop. I find that Gimp is *wonderful* for on-line stuff, and for automatic processing, but Photoshop is still needed for CMYK (and Pantone, and Hexachrome) support. Hopefully, Gimp 2.0 will fix some of this.)

--Joel

Now, I want to make a book cover, four color. I know that cmyk is handled only marginally in Gimp. I don't have and don't particularly want to have Adobe Distiller (the Unix price is ridiculous.) So what is the best strategy for me to follow, assuming that my printer will need to pick up the prepress preparation burden at some point? Should I attempt to prepare separations? Should I convert my Gimp-made cover to pdf via Ghostscript?

And has anyone actually done a book cover in four colors using Gimp?

All replies appreciated.

John Culleton