The Whitley Printing Company

Designing for Print

RGB-CMYK Conversion

Bottom line: If you choose colors based on the way they look on your computer monitor, you will likely be disappointed when you see them printed.

Background

In projected light (think: your computer screen) the three primary colors are red, green, and blue, (hence, RGB). All the other colors are created by combining the three primary colors -- we create white by combining in equal amounts. RGB is an additive color system — light is added to black to make color; black is the absence of light or color. Your computer monitor creates color by adding light to a black background.

In pigment (think: paint) the three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue—combining them all equally makes black, remove them and you have white. Pigment creates color by absorbing, or subtracting, certain light wavelengths, allowing the rest to reflect back to the eye. Unlike an additive system, which begins with black and adds color, pigment is a subtractive system—it begins with white and subtracts color.

Printing ink is also pigment, but unlike paint, we can’t mix ink on a sheet to create a color image—instead we use tiny dots of cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y) and black (K) inks to create the subtractive effect and emulate a continuous tone photograph.

What’s It All Mean to You?

As you can imagine, since your computer monitor (RGB) and the printing inks (CMYK) are creating color in totally opposite ways, what you see on your monitor will most likely differ from what you’ll see on press. This is why it’s critical that when you’re creating a file for printing that you work in CMYK colors, and that the file you send contains no images that maintain RGB attributes. It also demonstrates the importance of a high-quality and dependable digital proofing system, such as Whitley’s Color-Certified Digital Proofing, to ensure accurate and reliable color throughout the process.