Saturday, June 18, 2016

print design - How does a monitor display the CMYK color? Is it actually showing the true CMYK color?


Suppose I'm designing something for printing purposes. Then I need to stick with CMYK model. When ever I'm choosing color while designing, I'm setting color based on what my monitor shows me as CMYK. But Monitors don't work on CMYK. So, what my monitor showing is a conversion of that CMYK in RGB.


After reading little bit, now I understood that CMYK and RGB are not exactly convertible and there are always some differences. So, what I'm seeing is not the color I actually set. Right? If that is the case, because of deception by my monitor, am I setting the wrong colors? How are we supposed to design then?


This is based on a question regarding RGB to CMYK conversion.


enter image description here


say, RGB (86,92,214) the color in my image. Then monitor uses same values for displaying (lightning LEDs, LCDs or CRTs). Right?


enter image description here




Answer



A monitor can't show true CMYK. CMYK is reflective light, or subtractive color. A computer display is projected light, or additive color. They take up different (albeit overlapping) color spaces.


Your software does its best to emulate the CMYK colors converting them to RGB but it simply can't replicate them exactly.


"When ever I'm choosing color while designing, I'm setting color based on what my monitor shows me as CMYK"


As you're probably found out, that's quite a crap shoot. You can calibrate your monitor, which will help, but it will never be the same.


Your best bet is to get color samples from your printer. Bigger printers will often print out color grids showing you different CMYK mixes on various paper stock. Barring that, you can invest in some Pantone CMYK books that do the same.


If you use a regular printer, and tend to run larger jobs that require cropping/trimming, you can make these yourself by placing CMYK color grids in the gutters of your press sheets. Ask the printer to keep those for you when they trim them all.


No comments:

Post a Comment

technique - How credible is wikipedia?

I understand that this question relates more to wikipedia than it does writing but... If I was going to use wikipedia for a source for a res...