How to achieve vivid CMYK colours from RGB photos?

I have been trying to work this problem out. If I have a digital photo (RGB), and I need to convert it to CMYK for 4C offset. How can I retain the more vivid colours? I have seen even quite low budget productions (like toy catalogues) having very bright vivid colours, but whenever I do this conversion, I am always not satisfied with the output. They are OK but they are still sometimes not as vivid, or saturated as I want them. They always seem to have a slightly washed out look.

Apart from the straight conversion in Photoshop or similar softwares, what can I do to make this washed out look goes away?

FYI, I use a Xerox Phaser 850 for proofing. Is this the problem? As the conversion is tied to the printer profile?

Thanks for any help.

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I have been trying to work this problem out. If I have a digital photo (RGB), and I need to convert it to CMYK for 4C offset. How can I retain the more vivid colours? I have seen even quite low budget productions (like toy catalogues) having very bright vivid colours, but whenever I do this conversion, I am always not satisfied with the output. They are OK but they are still sometimes not as vivid, or saturated as I want them. They always seem to have a slightly washed out look.
Apart from the straight conversion in Photoshop or similar softwares, what can I do to make this washed out look goes away?

FYI, I use a Xerox Phaser 850 for proofing. Is this the problem? As the conversion is tied to the printer profile?

Thanks for any help.

I've never had to use CMYK, but what colour space are you working in? sRGB or AdobeRGB?
AdobeRGB is said to have the better gamut when working with CMYK. Edit>Color Settings or shift+ctrl+K

MH