Color Mismatch Between Image Color On Screen And Printout??

Skills software and technology
1

i have created my work in sketchbookpro2 which uses RGB color. i have saved it as a .psd file and then opened it in photoshop cs.
now the colors on my monitor look exactly as i want them to be and is how i have envisaged my product, but when i goto print my work out they come out much darker. i have used lime green in my sketches and when i print it out the color is a much darker green!
what can i do to match the onscreen colors when i come to print out my work?
any help appreciated.

2

Welcome the world of color gamut…

Your lime green is likely a color that is out of your printers color gamut. Gamut is the range of color that your printer’s CMYK inks are capable of producing.

Check out this link for a better explanation and examples

http://dx.sheridan.com/advisor/cmyk_color.html

You won’t be able to print your bright green without using a custom ink which likely involves a professional print job.

good luck.

3

Likely a color space problem. Called “color profiling”, it simply means that your monitor and printer have not been calibrated to give similar result… there are tools to help… The one I use:

http://www.xritephoto.com/product/optixxr/

There are less costly items as well.

Good Luck!


4

Apart from trying to get your monitor to match your printer output (that is a problem that effects anyone who has ever tried to have a piece of artwork printed professionally on an offset press…welcome to Print Nightmare 101), the first thing I would do for artwork that you know is going to print on an inkjet printer is get used to working in CMYK, not RGB. That way you are not going to suffer from a shift going from RGB to the latter in addition to the shift from RGB to a CMYK printer. If it’s going to print on a real offset press and it’s not going to be photo-realistic / four color / full color / CMYK, get used to working in Pantone colors (for 1, 2, or 3 color jobs, or even more-- though rare-- spot colors). You may adequately calibrate your monitor to represent RGB fairly realistically, but those same colors are always going to appear subtly different on a CMYK inkjet. Good luck.

Yours,

mothy