Sorry—this is a first post and it's a question. But I registered because I noticed there are some helpful people here and I need an answer because its driving me nuts!

I'm doing a regular newsletter for a non-profit and my problem is with the colours of the final output—I don't know how to explain it, but they are darker than they should be, or I had hoped them to be.

I'm converting all the images to CMYK—do I need to further adjust them keeping in mind these printers print everything too dark? How do I do this? Should I just guess?

How do you guys do this sort of thing if you can't trust the colour on your monitors? do you have to check every bit of colour, every photo/image against your pantone samples? Or do you just get tons of expensive printer proofs to tweak everything until everything is perfect?

Thanks!

Hey showard.

Here's a few suggestions: (1) calibrate your monitor, (2) talk to the printer—find out if their 'in house' people use a particular colour profile for their images. (3) Make sure your pics have good white and black points and maybe bump up the contrast. Remember that the screen is just a representation, what you get from the printer shows you exactly what you've created (maybe too late by then!).

Hope some of these suggstions help...

Hi Showard,

Are you refering to colours on your screen that are printing out darker? The colours that appear on your screen are displayed using a different colour system and light source than those on a printed page, so naturally they will print darker.

If you mean the colours print out darker on press than from the proofing device you're using, then I suspect it is a colour management issue. Have you asked your printer for a color profile? Each time you use a different output device, you should apply a color profile that is calibrated for that device (printer).

I could explain this in more detail, but it might be easier to order my book, Exploring Digital Prepress

www.amazon.ca/gp/product/141801236X/701-0065180-5101126

If you want to get seriously into colour management, here is another good resource:


Abay Sharma - Understanding Color Management

prepression wrote:
If you mean the colours print out darker on press than from the proofing device you're using, then I suspect it is a colour management issue. Have you asked your printer for a color profile? Each time you use a different output device, you should apply a color profile that is calibrated for that device (printer).

I think you've hit the nail on the head there — as the printer and I are in different time zones, etc — and I use a variety of different output devices (whatever's cheapeast!), I've failed to calibrate anything — in fact, don't even have a colour profile from the printer.

Going to check this out. Thanks for the info!