finley_walker57•10d agoProlific Poster

Printed a batch of business cards that came out looking like muddy soup

I designed these bright green cards on my monitor in RGB, all nice and vibrant. Sent them off to the printer and got back this dull, brownish-green mess that looked nothing like what I saw on screen. Turns out my super-saturated RGB green didn't convert well to CMYK at all. Has anyone else gotten burned by a color that looked fine on screen but turned into a total dud on paper?

3 comments

3 Comments

briannguyen10d ago

My first few print jobs I was all about screen colors and thought RGB was the way to go because it looked so good on my laptop. Then I got a order of posters back from a local shop in Denver and the green logo I loved came out looking like swamp water. That was the moment I realized print is a whole different game and you can't just trust what you see on a monitor. Now I always convert to CMYK in my design software beforehand and even then I'll order a small proof before running a full batch. It's a pain but saves you from that awful feeling when you open the box and see muddy colors staring back at you.

sam_harris6810d ago

Swamp water? That's rough, man.

the_richard7d ago

Jump into printing blind and hope for the best, right? That swamp water story hurts because I bet you paid extra for that "vibrant green" too. Nothing like a $200 lesson in color theory to really make you respect your local print shop.