Expert: Evgenia (Jenny) Grinblo - 10/27/2011

Question
Please! Why are my CYMK jpegs color saturated and how can I fix it

The rgb's look great but the CYMK look cr@-!
our Printers require CYMK jpeg images

I am trying to make a children s picture book

thanks!

Answer
Hi Josephine,

Sorry for the delay!

By "printers" do you mean a printing house or printing machines you have?

If you are getting your book printed at a professional printing establishment, the quickest and safest way to do this is send them an RGB proof (such as a PNG file) and your original RGB file and asking them to convert it there. The reason is because the appearance of CMYK files on screen and in printing differs very much based on screen calibration and the printing color profile. In other words, even if you found a way to change your CMYK file settings such that it resembled your RGB file 100%, it would still not guarantee seamless printing.

Since RGB uses light (from the screen) to build up its colors and CMYK uses combinations of the four ink colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) for its colors, it requires a great deal of practice and technical calibration to get the two to "live" well together.

I know it's too late this time around, but I always recommend starting a print project with a CMYK file and by checking with the printer for their particular specifications. I definitely learned this the hard way myself so I completely understand the frustration!

Good luck and let me know if there's anything else.

Evgenia