Many of my customers that are not in the immediate area,
request a .pdf file proof of their publication to speed up the turn around time
on any particular job. Pre-press
departments are usually wary of sending .pdf file proofs to customers. Why? We have a lot of reasons, but color matching is the first
reason that comes to mind.
When a customer receives a .pdf file proof they almost
always assume that their monitor is showing the colors that will
print. This is a completely false
assumption. How do I know it is a
false assumption? Well for one
thing, open a .pdf file on your computer then print it out on your home or
office printer. Does the color
that printed, exactly match what you are viewing on your monitor? Most likely
the color is not the same. Sometimes it will be fairly close, and sometimes it will be
completely different. Most people
don’t notice the discrepancy between the colors on a monitor and the colors
that are printed since the color on most of the items we print on our home or
office printers isn’t the most important part of the document. Color is often overlooked. In press printing,
color is one of the most important parts of a finished printed piece. In my opinion color is the
single most stressful part of press printing. I have often hated the color “royal blue” for the simple
fact that to me it is the most difficult color to achieve in CMYK press
printing from a pre-press standpoint.
To illustrate this, below is a color spectrum for RGB and CMYK side by
side. RGB is the color spectrum
that your monitor builds all the colors we see.
It mixes Red, Green, and Blue light to create pink, yellow, cyan and every color in between. Black is achieved by using no light at all, and white is achieved by mixing 100% of all of the colors together. CMYK printing is completely different. In CMYK printing all colors are achieved using a mix of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black inks. Because most printing is on white paper, we don’t need an ink to achieve white, we simply print no ink on the areas that we intend to be white. Black can achieved using just the black ink or by a mix of all of the inks together. Now that you understand how colors are achieved in RGB vs CMYK, lets move onto the important things: The reason I hate royal blue. Royal blue can easily be achieved on a monitor which means most people see the pretty blue on their monitor and think it will exactly translate to a printer, however royal blue is not easily achieved in CMYK printing. If you look at the diagram for RGB printing, you will see one of the three main colors, Blue. This Blue is pretty close to a royal blue by my ideals of what royal blue is. In CMYK printing there is no “blue” ink, there is only Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black inks. This means that the royal blue you see on the RGB scale converts to a mix of cyan and magenta on the CMYK scale. This creates a color closer to indigo, which to most people appears purple. So when people choose the standard bright glowing blue that Microsoft Word, Publisher, MAC Pages and other programs offer right off the bat, they expect it to print the color they see, which will never happen! I have had so many issues with the color blue, that now when I see a Word, Publisher, or Mac Pages file where someone has chosen that bright blue, instead of keeping the color as the standard conversion, I usually change it to the following CMYK breakdown to achieve what I have found to be the least complained about mix of inks as close to royal blue as I can get it. Royal Blue: C=100% M=58% Y=0% B=25%. This color appears closer to a “teal” color on your monitor, but when printed on a press if you sweet-talk your pressman, they can usually get it pretty close to royal blue. I could talk for hours about the issues caused by Microsoft Word, Publisher, and Mac Pages, but let’s save that for another time!
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