Green is still a total liar on screen after 6 years of this

I spent three hours tweaking a green gradient for a brochure layout last month, only to have it print out looking like swamp algae. The problem was my screen showed a warm olive, but the CMYK mix turned it yellow-brown. Took me another 2 hours just to figure out that my monitor's sRGB mode was overriding the profile. Has anyone else noticed green being the worst offender between screen and paper?

2 comments

2 Comments

lucas97214d ago

I mean, yeah green's tricky but calling it a "total liar" after six years feels a bit much. You spent three hours on a gradient? That's on you for not soft-proofing before sending it to print, honestly. I've had plenty of brochuress where greens shifted slightly, but swapping between sRGB and Adobe RGB isn't some hidden secret - it's pretty basic stuff. A quick check with the proof setup in whatever program you're using would have saved you that swamp look. Maybe the issue is less about green being some evil color and more about just double checking your workflow before you hit print.

keith_henderson17d ago

Your monitor calibration might actually be the real issue here. If you're running sRGB mode but working in Adobe RGB or another color space, it will throw off green every time, not just that one color. A hardware calibrator fixed green for me completely, even though I thought my screen was fine.