Do print designers still use CMYK? I was under the impression that the industry had been captured by Pantone
Spot colours (normally Pantone references embedded in the file) can be pretty expensive, and obviously scales with the number of colours you spec. The printer needs to either order or mix your inks, then run it thru a single colour print process or something automated like a risograph.
CMYK is ok when printing on white stock and has the benefit of being easy to print. It is washed out on screen, but it can look pretty nice when it has the benefit of light + bright white paper behind it.
It is washed out on paper as well, you're just used to it.
Said OK, not perfect haha. It really is OK for a lot of materials, especially if designed with the low saturation in mind.
Strangely enough we had the exact same story with gimp.
Could you elaborate on that?
IDK much about Inkscape development roadmap, but they should have prioritized CMYK long time ago. It's about unlocking potential user niches. Many people could live with a mediocre vector editor, had it been usable for print.
Once it's good enough for breadwinning, then it becomes much easier to fund development. People quote Blender as an example, but QGIS is also such a FOSS win.