RGB to CMYK
Your computer, scanner, digital camera, flat screen TV and monitor create images using combinations of just three colors: Red, Green and Blue (RGB).
Printing presses use four different colors to print these images Cyan (light blue), Magenta (pinky red), Yellow and BlacK (or CMYK also known as Process Color). At some point, your RGB images must be converted to CMYK in order to be printed.
Converting RGB to CMYK can be achieved with software like Photoshop. If this step is not done, you risk losing control over how the colors are converted, and this can have some quite undesirable efects, like producing text with four color black.
Traditional printers often use Pantone® Spot colors when printing work. Spot colors are mixed like paint and printed one at a time. As we use Process Color, all Pantone® Spot colors must be converted to their CMYK equivalent before your file is sent to us. If you do not do this, you risk obtaining undesired colors. If you do leave spot colors in your file, they will not be printed, and will result in a damaged end product.
Many RGB and Spot colors do not have a direct CMYK equivalent, colors like bright red can seem dull, the technical term for this is “out of gamut”. If originaly designed your artwork in RGB, you may very well be out of gamut, and when converting to CMYK, you are letting the software choose what it thinks is the closest CMYK equivalent, wich may not be what you want. This problem can be avoided by selecting your colors from a CMYK swatch instead of an RGB when designing your artwork.
If you would like to learn more about CMYK color, visit CMYK color model, or to know more about RGB, visit RGB color model.