CMYK question

I'm trying to have some business cards created and the company requires you to have your images saved in CMYK color. When I save in CMYK, there is an obvious color difference from RGB. My question is, If I upload the image saved in CMYK, will my cards print as I created them or will they print the way they look on my monitor?

thanks

The answer is largely. I would convert on screen and then have a proof done first. I assume they are digitally printed, so it should not be a problem. You should see any glaring colour shifts, but it only really causes problems with vivid colours.

We obviously don't know your workflow completely, so no-one can tell you for certain. A proof is the best way to make sure.

Hope that has been of some help


Graham

Thanks Graham, Do you mean they will largely look like the way I created them or as they look on my monitor?
I'll try for a proof before I order them.

CMYK is a smaller gamut than RGB. It also depends on what setting or profiles you are using when converting. Just like RGB devices are different, even from the same manufacturer, so are CMYK devices. But generally you will see less saturated color than RGB when you convert.

EDIT: Don't forget that when you print them at home, you are printing them in CMYK also. It's just that most people don't convert fisrt, they let the printer driver do it. I would check with the printing company on how best to prepare the document before sending it to them. They will be able to help you.

On the monitor. They will be quite small on a business card, so I wouldn't worry too much. As Bad Iron says, speak to the printer and ask if it's better for them to convert and drop in themselves if you have any doubts.

Best to check on screen yourself first though for any significant change. If you do it in photoshop, you can toggle to see if you can spot any changes. Depending on the image, it may not seem to shift at all.

Graham

I agree with blue_max, they will be small for a business card. So, its better to ask for a printing company or printing expert to make it sure...

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Thanks. If that's the case, then half of the images I have created in RGB aren't even close to acceptable. My vibrant reds turn to orange. The interesting thing is, I had the same company print some postcards and I sent them to them in RGB. They turned out fine. That's why I asked my question, wondering if I got lucky with the colors I was using? I just took those same postcards images and converted them to CMYK, the one looked terrible..which turned out great on the print. So I'm still confused. I do know, if what I see on my monitor in CMYK is what my prints will look like, I wont be sending them.
I guess I was hoping the CMYK just displayed like that on the monitor because it can only display RGB and the actual image was still as I created it or at least very close.
Thanks for the help

Crypto, without knowing your workflow, it is impossible to directly answer your question. Unless your workflow is color managed, it would be very suprising if your cards matched what you see on your monitor.

There are at least 13 CMYK settings in Photoshop and thousands of CMYK profiles available for specific devices. As JimE says, without knowing all your PS settings and workflow, it's just too general of a topic. As stated, your printer should be able to help. If your preview looks bad of output that looked good printed, then you might just have a setting wrong in PS.

Ok, I'll give this a try. I'm not sure what you mean by workflow. Workflow in how I processed the images or how I print them?
Maybe this will help.
I use PaintShop proX.
This is my Working space and my Color mgmt. sorry if its hard to read

BTW- I will call the printer, but I would like to learn a bit first. So thanks for any guidance

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Here is an example of my issue. The first is the original, the second after converted to CYMK

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First, here is a link that may help.
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=29530

Okay, the first problem is you are using Windows. Historically they suck at color management. (Okay, that was my Windows dig. I'm better now). I'm really not familiar with that program. Try looking at the above link however as I remember it was more about printing to a Canon printer. I would look for a generic SWOP profile versus that Kodak proofer profile, unless you know something about your print shop that you're not telling us.

Also, open up a photo of a person and convert to CMYK. You should see very little change. That reddish orange in your file will probably get clipped a bit, but should'nt be that brown looking.

thanks for your help. I'll do some more research

Sounds like your system has a bad case of "No Color Management".

On my Windows XP system, using PhotoshopCS2 (ver 9.0) I start with a RAW image in Adobe Camera RAW v3.3 and process it to a 16 bit TIFF in the Adobe RGB 1998 color space.

I then Mode Change that to CMYK Mode with the "US Web Coated (SWOP)" profile, and I see absolutely no change on my screen. The best demo I can give you of that is the following screen shot showing the two files opened at the same time.

[I don't see any difference in the colors on my screen when in Photoshop (where this screen shot was grabbed), and I don't see any difference in the colors here on the Web posting.]

Proper color management speaks for itself. The Color Settings that I am using are not some weird mumbo-jumbo that you can only generate through hours of sweat - they are straight from the selection of pre-configured color settings offered right out of the box, called "North America General Purpose 2". How could anything be simpler? It took less time to select that pre-configure setting and do the conversion and get the screen shot than it did to type up this note.

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Ok, so maybe my problem starts from my conversion RAW to TIF. I use RSE with sRGB IEC61966-2.1 and my CMYK is the Kodak SWOP proofer.
Should my workspace be Adobe RGB 1998 instead of sRGB?
This is all a little confusing to me. Are all these different settings and profiles used to add flexibility in the program to ensure accurate printing from multiple sources? Or am I missing the boat ?
Maybe it has very little to do with the image I used to create the above cards. Could it be the multiple layers I used to create them and the different blend modes for each layer?