The North American publication web offset default. Ships with Adobe software.
| File name | USWebCoatedSWOP.icc |
|---|---|
| Standard | SWOP (Specifications for Web Offset Publications) |
| Paper | Coated publication stock, web offset |
| Region | North America |
| Issued by | Adobe, based on SWOP specifications |
| Total ink limit | 300% |
| In Print.App | CMYK-us-web-coated-swop |
We link to the issuing body rather than mirroring the file. Colour profiles are licensed works, and the official source is also the only place guaranteed to carry the current revision. Specifications below are as published by Adobe, based on SWOP specifications; confirm them against the source before committing a production run.
U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 is the profile most North American designers have selected without thinking about it since roughly 2003, because it is the default CMYK working space in Adobe Creative Suite and Creative Cloud. That ubiquity is the main reason to care about it, and also the main reason to be careful with it.
You will not find this on a standards body’s download page, because it is not distributed that way. It ships with Adobe applications. If you have Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign installed, you already have it:
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/Recommended/C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color\That also means it is licensed to Adobe rather than freely redistributable, which is why we link rather than mirror it.
SWOP describes publication web offset: magazines, catalogues, inserts, printed fast on lighter coated stock. If that is your job, this profile is a reasonable description of it.
If you are printing sheetfed on good coated stock in North America, SWOP v2 is probably not what you want. GRACoL 2006 targets that process and will give you a noticeably larger gamut, particularly in the shadows. The two get conflated constantly because SWOP is the Adobe default and GRACoL is a deliberate choice, but they describe genuinely different printing conditions.
The 300% total ink limit is the giveaway: it is conservative because web presses run fast and paper has to release quickly.
Assign it per design template. If you sell both magazine-style work and sheetfed cards from the same store, they want different profiles, and Print.App applies whichever is attached to that template when the PDF is rendered. Customers can soft proof the conversion in the browser before ordering.
Print.App ships this profile built in, as CMYK-us-web-coated-swop. You assign it
per design template in the designer, and every print file rendered from that template
converts RGB to CMYK through it automatically. Nobody has to remember to do it, and
your customers never see a colour setting.
The same profile drives soft proofing in the browser, so the customer approves the converted result before ordering rather than discovering it on the proof. There are 27 profiles built in, covering the ISO Coated, PSO, GRACoL, SWOP, FOGRA and Japan Color families.
Print.App applies the right profile automatically at PDF render time, per design template, and soft proofs the conversion in the browser so your customers see the CMYK result before they order. Usage-based pricing, free monthly quota, no per-order fee.