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help - lost color in printing


alexthg
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Hi,

Recently I made a shopping mall interior, it aims for teenagers and youngsters so the design uses a lot of pastel & primary colors (saturated red, yellow, blue, purple, pink...).

So far it turns ok (at least on monitor), until I tried to print it. Many of the color turns GREY in printing. Especially those on the ceiling part.

I think this is RGB to CMYK problem, is there any way to solve this problem? At least to show 'some' colors for the GREY part, and not just plain GREY.

Harry G

edit: the picture at the bottom is how it looks in CMYK

cam0302ed01sm8cr.th.jpg

cam0302ed01smcmyk8mg.th.jpg

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I got no other printer in here. But I now don't think it's printing problem. If you check my 2 pictures, one is in RGB color mode from 3dsmax render, and the other one I converted to CMYK in Photoshop (and it's quite similar to what I got from my printer).

I understand that CMYK gamut differs from RGB, but is there anyway to minimize the differences? especially when doing with very saturated colors? like bright fiery red for example.

 

Harry

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my monitors are spyder calibrated (though i don't work in a environment-controlled-room). Printer : HP 1180c, paper : HP premium plus photopaper (glossy).

and yes, prints usually match with what i saw on monitor (not 100%, but close)...

 

btw, i just tried an experiment in photoshop. Make a linear gradient from complete Red (255,0,0), to Blue (0,255,0), to Green (0,0,255) in RGB mode and then convert it to CMYK.... and the result are....wow... looks like it's heavily desaturated....and I never thought it would differ that much... CMYK really can't show that bright red, green, and blue...

 

what if I outsource the print? do they know how to deal with this RGB-CMYK things? i mean, they're the experts, don't they?

 

Harry

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you have to read on the differences between RGB color, and CMYK color.

 

RGB color is created using light. your monitor display uses lights to create the image on the screen. a broader range of color can be acheived using light, than you can acheive when you print.

 

when you convert an image to CMYK, you are converting it to match the colors that you printer might be able to hit depending on its quality and calibration.

 

there are hundreds of posts on the internet talking about this..

http://www.sparklenet.com/1_Main_Street/Art_Smarts/Color/Nature/CMYK_vs_RGB.htm

 

...as for high quality print, try Dye-Sub. for years the tech industry has been promising paper thin displays that are like paper. electronic paper. maybe then you can have full spectrum RGB as a vitual print out.

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Hi,

Recently I made a shopping mall interior, it aims for teenagers and youngsters so the design uses a lot of pastel & primary colors (saturated red, yellow, blue, purple, pink...).

So far it turns ok (at least on monitor), until I tried to print it. Many of the color turns GREY in printing. Especially those on the ceiling part.

I think this is RGB to CMYK problem, is there any way to solve this problem? At least to show 'some' colors for the GREY part, and not just plain GREY.

Harry G

edit: the picture at the bottom is how it looks in CMYK

cam0302ed01sm8cr.th.jpg

cam0302ed01smcmyk8mg.th.jpg

 

 

I would not convert the imgae to a CMYK Profile before printing. Leave it to the printerdriver to match the RGB to the colorspace of the printer. The most important step ist to select the correct paper profile in the printing dialog.

 

The best thing to do to test how the image will look if printed is to use the Soft Proof function in Photoshop. It can be found in the "View" Menu. You have to select the correct paperprofile under "Proof Setup..."

 

Florian

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