Expert: Amy - 7/19/2007

Question
QUESTION: Hello,
Im using a mac and illustrator cs. I have produced a web logo for a company
workin in RGB  mode, the company now wants me to design business cards
for them using their logo. If I convert to cmyk in illustrator the colours do not
change but when I export it the colours look dark and horrible. I have been
playing about with picking colours in illustrator and exporting them to see
what gives me the best results (the closest colours to the original rgb) but is
there a quicker way? I dont know whether what I'm going to send them is
going to look anything like their web logo when the send it to print on their
business cards!?! please help! Thanks.

ANSWER: Hi Laura.

What are you exporting to?

There's a huge difference between CMYK and RGB as you found out.

When you design for web you can do anything you want. When you design for print, you are restricted to the colors that can be reproduced with CMY and K inks. Photoshop and Illustrator try to give you a better idea as to what your results will look like by giving you a soft proofing option.

Turn on Proof Mode by choosing View>Proof Setup>Custom and pick US Sheetfed Coated. That'll help your preview's accuracy.

But the only way to truly see what your CMYK colors will turn out like is to use a Pantone book and even then there will be a variance.

Now, please write back and tell me what format you are exporting to (and why) and I'll let you know if there's a way to make the product you export look better.

Amy

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hello,
thanks so much for your quick reply. For some reason the proof setup is greyed out so I cannot select US Sheetfed Coated. I have been exporting a variety of formats so that  my client will have all the different ones that he could possibly need. He will be sending my designs onto a printers, im not sure which format they will require but im supplying  jpeg, tiff, pdf and eps.

Thanks ever so much for your time.

Laura

Answer
Hmmm, grayed out?  That's strange. Sounds like you need to delete your preferences file. Quit AI, locate and delete AIprefs and AI color settings files, and restart Illustrator. If they are still grayed out, go to Edit>prefs>Plug-Ins and make sure the correct Plug-Ins folder is targeted... although I don't think that will affect this problem. I will think about that one some more.

The best preview you could send everyone is probably a PDF, actually. Printers prefer either EPS or a CMYK PDF (with no compression and embedded fonts). Try saving as a PDF or printing to AdobePDF (if you have distiller) and see what happens.

Just make sure all your artwork is CMYK. Printers can't handle RGB. Sounds like you already know that, though.