Posted on on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 6:03 pm.
Get the basics right
A major consideration when designing for both web and print is colour and how it changes from CMYK (the colour that is printed) to RGB (colour that is seen on screen) avoiding this consideration may lead to mistakes in design when you work comes to print.
Although you may think working in web there is no need to consider printing but ignoring the principles of print and how both RGB and CMYK methods work; will lead to changed, washed out designs on other media.
It can some times be difficult to visualize the reason for colour shift in colour space conversion, the problem is where RGB colours have to compensate from the control of CMYK. The best way to understand the reasons why colour changes is to look at, side by side, how RGB has its limitation in a CMYK colour gamut.
color gamut
This chart plots the visible colour spectrum as the large “horse shoe” area, and within this is a plot of the CMYK colours, and the RGB colours. You can see that in some areas the RGB colour space is “outside” that of the CMYK space. It is these colours that will be affected by a conversion from RGB to CMYK.
Simply stating the obvious; if your going to send your work to print then work in print mode, understand that the colours you see on screen are not necessarily the ones that are going to print; don’t allow the computer to determine what colours you want printing, take it on yourself and have clarity on your own results. Colour management helps, but very few people including both students and qualified designers are really not prepared to deal with all the ramifications of using RGB colours. Remember, proofing them in CMYK will allow you to see what they really are going to look like.
Channel
June 16th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
The whole RGB v’s CMYK v’s Pantone thing is one big nightmare and takes a lot of explaining in my job.
I think if you’re ‘really’ concerned about matching your web colour to your print colour, Pantone is probably the best route.
With CMYK colours are often much more dull compared to the vibrancy you see on screen with RGB, and Pantone can offer you more vibrancy in their shades compared to CMYK.
All you need is a Pantone book, and you can literally hold it up to the PC screen and match the shades.
Of course though, that’s just the colours you see on ‘your’ PC screen that it’s matching.
Each PC screen can display colours differently – so everyone could be seeing a slightly different shade. And the nightmare begins once more.
The moral? Don’t worry too much about ‘exactly’ matching your web colour to your print colour, it’s never going to happen for every person viewing your website.
Simply ensure that all your print colours match each other, and that they aren’t terribly departed from what most people see on their PC screen when viewing your website.