How I found out my export settings were wrecking my print projects for 4 years

I was working on a brochure for a client in Seattle and kept noticing the colors looked dull when I printed them from Figma. Turns out I had been exporting in RGB instead of CMYK the whole time without realizing it. A prepress guy at the print shop pointed it out after I complained about the quality. Has anyone else accidentally used the wrong color mode for print work and had to redo a bunch of files?

2 comments

2 Comments

kim.hannah12d ago

Actually RGB can work fine if you let the print shop convert it.

zarak1812d ago

I had a similar thing happen with a poster order last year @kim.hannah. I had a file in RGB and the print shop told me not to worry about converting it myself. They handled the conversion on their end and it came out looking great. The colors were a little richer than I expected actually, but that might just be their printer profile. I’ve also had bad experiences with print shops that didn’t convert RGB properly though, so it depends on the shop. It’s really a gamble unless you know their setup.