DSF

Using Ricoh SG3110 DN
Sawgrass inks
Powerdriver

I have just been printing out a fresh set colour swatches on mugs in RGB and CMYK because I find it easier to work having the colours on mugs next to me. Now in some colours there is quite a difference, Magenta being an excellent example. So I tend to use which ever I matches best without any further faffing around.

BUT
Am I missing something?
Is there a right time for one and not the other?

Janners

Even though your inks are Cyan Magenta Yellow and (K) Black, the majority of inkjet printers use RGB files. When you convert to CMYK, not only are you loosing colour space, but your colours are going to look very different when printed.

CMYK is really for professional offset printing and RGB is generally for home printers.

GoonerGary;65134 wrote:Even though your inks are Cyan Magenta Yellow and (K) Black, the majority of inkjet printers use RGB files. When you convert to CMYK, not only are you loosing colour space, but your colours are going to look very different when printed.

CMYK is really for professional offset printing and RGB is generally for home printers.

Makes sense.

Having been in the litho printing business for 23 years (I'm not now)! RGB was usually used by designers as the colours looked bright and vivid on screen. When it came to the CMYK conversion for litho printing the colours went flat. Designers could never comprehend this. Modern software, especially RGB conversion in high res PDF files does a good job of converting RGB colours. The problems come when an RGB image is dropped into a CMYK design and the colours in it are meant to be the same. When the conversion is done it messes it all up. I am completely new to Dye Sub and am currently looking at machines but as far as I can see dye-sub inks are quite vivid so should be able to reproduce a conversion quite well.

If you take RGB images from customers, you should make them aware that a CMYK conversion will change their colours.