Designed a whole wedding invite suite in RGB... noticed 3 days before print deadline

I spent maybe 4 hours picking out the exact perfect sage green and blush pink for my cousin's wedding invites, only to discover my file was set to RGB the whole time. The CMYK conversion turned everything into this muddy olive and weird salmon color that looked nothing like what I saw on screen. Took me another 2 hours to rework the whole palette and get the proofs back to the printer. Has anyone else had a color shift that bad right before a deadline?

2 comments

2 Comments

christophermurray3d ago

Wait is this actually a big deal or just a minor color difference nobody will notice?

jordangibson2d ago

Jumping in to say yeah this is a massive deal. The difference between what you saw on screen and what you get printed can be shocking, especially with pastels. Sage green and blush pink are super tricky colors to convert because they rely on light and brightness that CMYK just can't reproduce well. I've had a wedding invite disaster myself where the soft lavender turned into a weird grayish purple after printing. It's not just a minor thing either, because the whole vibe of the invite gets thrown off and clients notice immediately. You did the right thing by catching it before the proof deadline, that extra 2 hours saved you a lot of headaches and reprints.