Used to eyeball color profiles on my laptop screen, then I printed a wedding invite that came out neon orange instead of rose gold

I was designing invites for my sister's wedding last year. On my screen everything looked soft and romantic. When the prints showed up from the shop, the flowers were straight up traffic cone orange. The shop guy showed me my file was in RGB and my cheap laptop screen was cranked to max brightness. Now I check the CMYK values before I even start picking colors. Has anyone else had a print come back looking totally different than what you expected?

2 comments

2 Comments

kim.hannah5d ago

Traffic cone orange" is painfully real, get a hardware calibrated monitor and soft proof in Photoshop before you print.

fiona_murray5d ago

I used to skip soft proofing too @kim.hannah, but this post finally made me try it and now I get it.