CMYK help

omeletteman · Sep 19, 2006

Hey guys,

I work for my school newspaper and all our colour pages have to be in CMYK colour mode in order for us to print them. The problem is that when I convert to CMYK (in photosop), the photos always look like ass. They just seem...empty...very grey and almost desaturated looking. I'm wondering if there is a way to make a photo look the same in CMYK as it does in RGB. Maybe there is a special way to convert it, or maybe someone just knows some edits that can bring it back to life. I would much appreciate any help.

Arch · Sep 19, 2006

I would re-edit the photo in cmyk mode if your not happy with it..... there is no way to match some rgb colours in cmyk mode as rgb uses light to make up its colour range.

Digital Matt · Sep 19, 2006

Agreed. You'll have to do some tweaking.

Christie Photo · Sep 19, 2006

Wow. I do this ALL the time, and haven't seen this, at least not in the photos. I do all editing in RGB before converting to CYMK. I can't think of anything that would cause this.

My only thought is make your images very close (if not exactly) to the final print size.... and at 300 DPI. Do the sharpening. THEN change to CYMK.

Is your monitor calibrated?

I'll get back if I think of anything else.

Pete

Digital Matt · Sep 19, 2006

Anytime you change color modes, you have the possibility of color change. CMYK is not capable of reproducing the same color as RGB. They have a different gamuts.

Christie Photo · Sep 19, 2006

Digital Matt said:
Anytime you change color modes, you have the possibility of color change.

Yup. This is REALLY evident with graphics... changing a spot color to CYMK separations. But I haven't seen photos change so much that it was greatly noticable.

L146705 · Sep 19, 2006

yeah this happened to me a while back, I had designed a load of leaflets in rgb, then realised I needed to change to cmyk. The best thing to do is get a pantone colour card thing and try to get the coloest match for the colour in rgb.

jeroen · Sep 23, 2006

Very saturated colours, like blue skies and green plants will change colour when converted from RGB to CMYK.

Edit your photos in RGB. But go to "View->Proof setup->Working CMYK" before you edit. That way you will see what will happen in CMYK and you'll still be working in RGB.

Never edit in CMYK, allways in RGB. Things might look okay on your screen in CMYK, but will probably be screwed up in print. That's because colours on a monitor are made of light and colours in print are made of ink.
So converting to CMYK is always the last step.

Arch · Sep 24, 2006

jeroen said:
Never edit in CMYK, allways in RGB. Things might look okay on your screen in CMYK, but will probably be screwed up in print. That's because colours on a monitor are made of light and colours in print are made of ink.
So converting to CMYK is always the last step.

not quite true..... if you are going to get something printed in CMYK always check the conversion and make alterations if necessary in CMYK.

CMYK is not made up from light in the same way RGB is.... so you can get the same (or similar) colours as you see on screen, provided the printers have the same profile set up.

If you check your image in CMYK as the last step..... but find your not happy with the colour change, so convert it back to RGB and alter it..... you will never get the colours you want in the CMYK preview..... plus it will take forever to keep doing this.....
So always do yor final alterations in CMYK as it will be alot closer to the final print result.