August 3, 2006
…blues in rgb and cmyk…
It is so frustrating trying to make color work for a print job… ESPECIALLY those cantankerous blues.
One of the aggravations of doing color art is that there is no way to reproduce the brilliant colors that are on your original piece of artwork. You lose a little color, (or a lot of color) with each step you take towards a published piece.
You lose a little in the scanning process, (your scanner can only see a limited amount of color).
When you display in rgb mode on the internet, monitors can only recognize a limited amount of color, PLUS everyone has a different monitor, each with it’s own weird color setting, so there is really no telling what kind of color people are actually seeing in your picture.
And if, heaven forbid, you are doing a job to be printed on a press, your art must be in the dreaded cmyk mode because a printing press can only reproduce a very narrow field of color. CMYK seems to always totally destroy the blues in my work.
Recently I did this test to see which blue would work the best when transferred into cmyk mode. My conclusion… I probably need to stay away from blue and use more grays and browns if I want my original artwork to look just like the printed piece.
The Comments
Doug Jones
If you elect me, I will fix this issue of cantankerous blues. I promise I can get this done and it will be the first thing on my agenda when I take office. My opponents say THEY will fix this too, but they are all color-blind. They are also liers. Color-blind liers.
Vote for me.
I am Doug Jones and I approve this message.
bernardfromtheyard
Dennis, I’m so glad you have returned to an instructional post that all wanna-bees can profit from. this one BLUE me away! Bee-Nard
Doug Jones
Dennis is suffering from a bad case of the Ultramarine Blues…
I am Doug Jones and I approve this message.
Don Jones
Reminds me of that great little ditty…. Deep River Blues. “My old gal she’s a good old pal, she looks just like a water fowl and I got… those Deep River Balooooozzzeeee…”
Doug Jones
Don… for a mere $19.95 I will gladly approve your message. cash, check, or paypal….
Doug Jones
oops… my name is Doug Jones and I approve my last message.
My name is Doug Jones and I approve THIS message… (whew!)
bernardfromtheyard
I’m so happy to read all of these Blue-t-full comments. sigh
Dennis Jones
…Doug, I dont know what your party affiliation is… (I suspect toga)… but I’m voting for YOU to fix the insufferable cantankerous blue problem that is plaguing this fine country of ours… everybody… remember to vote!… and if you live in Chicago, vote often!
Doug Jones
I’m a Mugwump…
I am Doug Jones and I approve this message.
Doug Jones
Kyle had a similar complaint the other day. Even when you design on the computer, you don’t know what your colors will look like on someone elses monitor.
Don Jones
Have you heard of the muddled monitor blue conspiracy? All the flat-panel and tube monitor manufacturers have joined together to completely change the light spectrum of the color blue to a more dull, slightly dull tone. Before long the complement of orange will be… I hate to say it… BROWN!
Doug Jones
so first you paint it… then you scan it… then you convert to CMYK for print. Have you tried to tweak the CMYK blues in Photoshop, or is that too much trouble?
Dennis Jones
…I usually pump up the saturation a bit on my pictures to try and restore the color loss a bit, but all that really accomplishes with the blues is making them a good dense dark gray-blue…
Henrik Johansson
That is the depressing truth and it’s even worse with brilliant greens. The cmyk gamut is just too small, it doesn’t matter how much you try to boost the color in photoshop. Have you ever tried a printer who can print hexachrome? (You better let them do the separation though, a plugin for hexa-separation is about 1000 bucks!)