Have you ever designed something on your computer, only to find the printed colours look completely different? This common frustration often comes down to the difference between RGB and CMYK colour profiles.
Understanding which colour space to use for your project is the key to getting the colours you expect.
Getting colour right starts long before you hit “print” or “publish.” Choose the right mode from the start, and you’re already on your way to flawless, true-to-life colour results. Read this blog to learn more about how to achieve perfect color accuracy in every project.
The main difference between the RGB and CMYK colour models is how they create colours. The RGB color mode (Red, Green, Blue) is an additive process. It starts with a black screen and adds different intensities of red, green, and blue light to produce a wide spectrum of colours. When all three primary colours of light are combined at full intensity, they create pure white. This is how your computer screen, phone, and TV display images.
On the other hand, the CMYK mode (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key/Black) is a subtractive process used for printing. It works by starting with white paper and subtracting colours from white light. Inks absorb certain light wavelengths, so as you layer cyan, magenta, and yellow ink, the result gets darker.
Black ink is used to create deep, rich shadows and true black tones, as mixing the other three colors alone produces a muddy brown. These different color models are designed for very different applications.
When working on digital projects, use RGB for vibrant colours, while CMYK is essential for print to ensure colour accuracy. Convert between modes when preparing files for printing or sharing online to maintain the intended look across different platforms and media.
You should always use the RGB colour space when your design will be displayed on digital devices. Screens on computer monitors, smartphones, and televisions create images by emitting light, which is exactly what the RGB model is based on. Using RGB files for digital work ensures your colours appear as vibrant and bright as intended.
Because it is an additive model, RGB has a wider range of colours (or gamut) than CMYK, allowing for the brilliant and high-contrast visuals we are used to seeing on social media and the web. Since you are designing for a light-based medium, staying in this colour mode is the best way to control the final look of your digital images.
Use RGB for projects like:
Sticking with the RGB colour mode ensures your digital designs look crisp, bright, and true to life across all screens, helping your visuals maintain the same impact and vibrancy your audience sees online.
You should always use the CMYK colour space when your design will be physically printed. Printers use four inks, cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, to reproduce colours on paper, which is why CMYK is known as a subtractive colour model.
Using CMYK ensures that the colours you see on-screen translate accurately in print. Designs created in RGB can look overly bright or washed out once printed, since screens emit light while paper reflects it. Converting your digital artwork to CMYK before printing helps maintain colour consistency and prevents unexpected shifts in tone or saturation.
Because CMYK is designed for ink-based reproduction, it’s perfect for professional print materials that demand precise colour matching and high-quality finishes.
Use CMYK for projects like:
Staying in the CMYK colour mode gives you better control over how your final printed piece looks, ensuring crisp, accurate colours that align with your brand and design intent.
You should always convert your design from an RGB colour space to CMYK before you send it to a printer. While many printers can perform this conversion automatically, doing it yourself gives you control over the final outcome. The RGB colour gamut is much larger than CMYK's, meaning some bright RGB colours simply cannot be reproduced with ink.
Yes, your colours will almost certainly look different if you print an RGB file directly. They often appear duller or less vibrant. By managing the conversion process yourself using the right tools in your design software, you can see these colour shifts and make adjustments. This step is a critical part of the design process to ensure colour accuracy.
Convert from RGB to CMYK to:
Choosing the right colour mode ensures your design looks consistent across screens and print. RGB and CMYK handle colour differently, and selecting the correct one early helps prevent faded tones or unexpected colour shifts later.
Here's how you check your colour mode;
In Photoshop: Go to Image > Mode to view or change between RGB and CMYK.
In Illustrator: Open File > Document Colour Mode to confirm your setting.
In InDesign: Open Window > Colour> Colour Panel to check if your swatches show RGB or CMYK values.
Once you know your colour mode, save your file in a format suited to it.
When designing for print, you need formats that preserve colour accuracy and detail.
Choosing the right file format matters because CMYK files are used for physical printing, where precision counts. The wrong format can flatten colours, dull your design, or cause pixelation once it’s on paper, especially if the file was originally saved in RGB mode.
PDF (Portable Document Format): The go-to choice for professional printing. It embeds colour profiles, keeps vector and raster data intact, and ensures what you see on-screen matches the printed result.
AI (Adobe Illustrator): Best for vector graphics like logos or brand elements. It preserves editable layers and colour accuracy, giving printers maximum flexibility.
EPS (Encapsulated PostScript): A versatile alternative to AI that works across different design programs while maintaining vector quality and colour consistency.
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format): Ideal for high-resolution photography or detailed artwork. It’s lossless, meaning no image quality is sacrificed during saving or printing.
These formats ensure your CMYK files print cleanly, with vibrant, true-to-colour results that reflect your design perfectly.
When designing for digital use, you need formats that maintain sharpness and vibrant on-screen colour.
RGB is made for screens, websites, apps, and social media. Using print-oriented formats can lead to unnecessarily large files or muted colours that don’t pop online. Choosing the right format helps your visuals stay crisp, consistent, and easy to share.
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group): Great for web and social media. Compresses images efficiently while retaining good visual quality.
PNG (Portable Network Graphics): Ideal for logos, icons, and images needing transparency or sharper edges. Keeps colours bright and clear on any display.
SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics): Perfect for web graphics and responsive designs. Scales infinitely without losing quality, ensuring sharp visuals on all screen sizes.
PSD (Adobe Photoshop Document): Best for editable RGB artwork. Keeps layers intact for future adjustments and exports easily to web-friendly formats.
These formats help your RGB designs look polished and professional across every screen, preserving the clarity and colour depth your audience expects.
Converting between RGB and CMYK is a straightforward process in most design software, but you should be prepared for some changes in your colours.
Because the RGB colour gamut is larger, some bright, vibrant colours may appear duller or less saturated after the conversion process to CMYK. This is one of the most common colour shifts.
By converting the file yourself, you can adjust these colours to improve colour consistency in the final print and maintain colour accuracy.
Switching colour modes in Photoshop is easy and can be done by following these steps;
If you're preparing a vibrant design for social media, stick with RGB. However, for business cards or brochures, CMYK is your best bet for rich colours.
Switching the colour mode in Adobe Illustrator can be easily done by following these steps;
Always remember to check the mode of the image before exporting, as it can make a significant difference in the final product’s image quality.
Adobe InDesign is primarily used for layout projects like magazines and brochures, so it's built to handle CMYK color modes from the start. However, if you import RGB images, you'll need to convert them. The best way to do this in InDesign is during the export process.
Here’s how to convert to CMYK when exporting from InDesign:
File > Export.Adobe PDF (Print) the format and click "Save."Understanding how to change colour modes in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign ensures your designs appear exactly as intended across digital and print platforms. Choosing the right mode, RGB for screens or CMYK for print, preserves colour accuracy and visual consistency. With these simple steps, you can confidently prepare any creative project for its perfect final output.
At Ex Why Zed, we know how important it is for your final product to match your vision. Our team of print experts is dedicated to ensuring you get the best results every time. We pay close attention to colour accuracy and colour consistency, guiding you through the printing process to avoid common pitfalls. We're here to help you get your colours just right.
We'll review your files and help you make sure they are in the desired colour space for printing. Whether you have questions about rich black or need help converting your files, we provide the support you need.
Our goal is to make the printing process smooth and deliver a final product that you'll be proud of, with vibrant, accurate colours that truly stand out. Contact us today to learn how Zed can ensure you get the best prints!
Understanding the distinction between RGB and CMYK is crucial for achieving optimal results in your printing projects. As we've explored, each colour model serves a specific purpose depending on the medium: RGB for digital displays and CMYK for print. By knowing when to use and convert these colour modes, you can ensure that your designs translate accurately from screen to paper.
CMYK is the preferred colour profile for all professional print projects. Because printers use cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks, designing in CMYK colour modes ensures the highest colour accuracy. This helps you get a reliable preview of how your colours will look on physical print materials.
The conversion process from CMYK to the RGB colour mode is simple in most design software. This is often done when you want to use a print design, like a logo, for digital designs like a website or social media. This will restore the brighter, more vibrant range of colours suitable for screens.
The most common problems are unexpected colour shifts, where bright screen colours appear dull in print. This lack of colour consistency and poor colour accuracy happens when a file in the RGB colour model is printed without a proper conversion, as the different colour models reproduce colours in fundamentally different ways.
Your colours will likely look very different. The printer's automatic conversion from the RGB colour space to CMYK mode is often unpredictable. This can lead to dull or inaccurate colour reproduction, as many vibrant tones in the RGB colour mode simply don't exist in the CMYK gamut.
You can easily convert RGB colours to CMYK values using design tools like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. Simply change your document’s colour mode to CMYK under “Edit” or “Image” settings for accurate print results.
Understanding RGB vs CMYK colour ensures accurate visual output across media. RGB suits digital screens using light, while CMYK suits print using ink. Designers must choose correctly to maintain colour consistency, vibrancy, and professional-quality results.
For CMYK vs RGB printing, files must match the intended medium. Convert RGB images to CMYK before printing, embed colour profiles, check saturation limits, and proof colours. This ensures accurate colour reproduction, avoiding unexpected shifts and costly reprints.
Converting RGB in CMYK is a colour-space transformation where colours defined by light (RGB) are mapped to ink-based values (CMYK). Expect saturated blues and bright greens to shift or appear duller, so always soft-proof and adjust colours for professional prints.
To print a rich black correctly, combine black ink with CMY values for deeper tones. A professional mix like 60% Cyan, 40% Magenta, 40% Yellow, and 100% Black ensures vibrant, saturated results without dullness or ink oversaturation.
Ever designed something stunning on your screen, only to have it print in completely different colours? Maybe that bright teal turns dull, or your perfect coral suddenly looks orange. It’s a frustrating moment every designer faces sooner or later.
That mismatch happens because screens and printers don’t speak the same colour language. Your monitor uses RGB light, while printers rely on CMYK ink. Without understanding how those systems translate colour, what you see on screen rarely matches what comes out on paper.
In this guide, you’ll learn how CMYK really works, and how to use it to make your printed designs look just as vibrant and accurate as they do on your screen.
When your design moves from screen to paper, CMYK is what makes the colours come alive. It refers to the four basic ink colours used in traditional printing: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black). These colours blend in layers to produce the full range of hues you see on printed materials.
Each letter has a purpose; cyan brings cool tones, magenta adds warmth, yellow provides brightness, and black (the “key”) enhances depth and contrast.
Printers use this colour model because it allows for precise control over colour mixing and sharp detail in images or text. Understanding the CMYK colour meaning helps designers create accurate, professional prints that look exactly as intended, whether you’re making a business card, brochure, or poster. It’s the foundation of how digital designs become high-quality printed results.
The CMYK colour model is the method printers use to reproduce full-colour images on paper. It’s based on how inks interact with light to form different colours.
Unlike digital screens, which create colour by adding light (known as RGB), CMYK uses a subtractive process. Think of starting with a white canvas, like a sheet of paper. As you add ink, it absorbs certain wavelengths of light, and the reflected light from the paper creates the colour you see.
For instance, cyan ink absorbs red light, so what you perceive are the reflected blue and green light waves. This is the opposite of how your computer screen works, which adds light to a black background.
During the printing process, printing presses lay down tiny dots of ink in cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. These dots are placed in specific patterns and densities.
From a distance, your eyes blend these dots together to perceive a solid colour image. Step back, and those tiny dots disappear, leaving a flawless, full-colour image. That’s the artistry of modern printing: transforming countless microscopic details into one seamless visual experience.
Understanding how to convert CMYK to RGB is essential if you’re working between print and digital design. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key/Black) is the colour model used for printing, while RGB (Red, Green, Blue) is used for screens such as computers, phones, and TVs.
Screens mix light differently than printers mix ink; we need a formula to ‘translate’ colours from CMYK to RGB.
To translate colours accurately from print to digital, you can use this formula:
In the CMYK to RGB conversion, each colour channel is calculated based on how much light is reflected rather than absorbed by ink.
R = 255 × (1 - C) × (1 - K) - the red value decreases as cyan and black increase.
G = 255 × (1 - M) × (1 - K) - the green value lowers with more magenta and black.
B = 255 × (1 - Y) × (1 - K) - the blue value dims as yellow and black rise.
Together, these formulas translate ink levels (CMYK) into the light-based colours you see on a screen (RGB).
Here’s what it means:
For example, if you have C=0.4, M=0.2, Y=0.0, K=0.1, the RGB conversion would give you a digital colour close to R=138, G=183, B=230; a soft sky blue.
Understanding this conversion helps ensure colour consistency between your printed materials and what appears on-screen, an important skill for designers, photographers, and digital artists alike.
The main difference between the CMYK and RGB colour models lies in how they create colour and where they are used. RGB (Red, Green, Blue) is an additive model that combines colours of light to create a spectrum.
It starts with black (no light) and adds red, green, and blue light to create brighter colours, with all three at full intensity, making white. This is why RGB is used for all electronic devices with screens, like monitors, phones, and TVs.
Conversely, CMYK is a subtractive colour model used for colour printing. It starts with a white surface (paper) and subtracts light as inks are applied. More ink means darker colours. Because of this fundamental difference in the colour gamut, CMYK is the standard for any physically printed materials.
If you care how your colours actually print, this is non-negotiable. The right CMYK profile keeps your design faithful from screen to press. Here’s how to do it step by step:
Every printer uses slightly different machines, papers, and inks. Ask your printer which CMYK profile they recommend. Common ones include U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 for coated paper or Coated FOGRA39 for European printing standards.
In Photoshop, go to Edit > Colour Settings, then choose your printer’s recommended CMYK profile under “Working Spaces.” Setting this before you start designing ensures all your colours are created within the right range for printing.
If you started your design in RGB (for digital screens), convert it to CMYK using Edit > Convert to Profile. This helps you preview how your colours will look in print and adjust them if needed.
For logos or brand colours that must be exact, use Pantone (spot) colours alongside CMYK. Pantones are pre-mixed inks that guarantee the same shade every time, perfect for consistent branding.
Before final production, print a small proof to confirm your colours look right. Adjust your settings if something seems off; it’s much easier to fix before a large run.
The right CMYK profile doesn’t just preserve colour, it preserves your intent, making sure every print reflects the design exactly as you envisioned it.
Every CMYK colour code is a mix of four ink values, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black, each ranging from 0% to 100%. Together, they determine how your printed colour appears.
For example:
These codes guide printers on how much of each ink to mix, ensuring the printed colour looks the same as what was designed on screen.
Designers use CMYK codes in programs like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to prepare files for printing, because printers read these codes directly to produce consistent, accurate results.
Here’s a fun twist: white doesn’t actually exist in CMYK printing. The code C:0, M:0, Y:0, K:0 doesn’t add ink at all; it simply leaves the paper untouched, letting its natural colour show through.
When you specify these values in your design, you are telling the printer to apply no colour to that area, allowing the natural white of the paper to show through. This is a core principle of the subtractive printing process.
This matters immensely because the paper itself becomes part of your design. The quality, texture, and shade of the paper you choose will be the "white" in your finished product. Understanding this helps you make better design choices.
If you want a crisp, bright white, you need to print on bright white paper.
This is why you cannot print the colour white onto a coloured piece of paper using the standard CMYK process without using a special spot colour of white ink.
From business cards to billboards, CMYK printing is behind nearly every vivid design you see. Its versatility lets you create anything from subtle tones to eye-popping colour, whatever your project demands.
Here are a few design ideas that shine best in CMYK: bold, vibrant, and print-ready.
In the world of print media, flyers are a fantastic way to convey messages using vibrant visuals. Utilising the subtractive colour model, vibrant CMYK colours, such as dots of cyan and magenta, allow for a wide range of hues, ensuring your designs pop.
Careful conversion from RGB files to CMYK ensures accurate colour reproduction in printed flyers. Whether announcing events or promoting products, mastering the nuances of colour printing in flyers can make a big difference in engaging your audience effectively.
When it comes to business cards, brand consistency is key. Your business card is often the first piece of print media a potential client receives, and it needs to represent your brand perfectly. Using CMYK for colour printing ensures that your brand's specific colours are reproduced with precision, providing an exact match every time.
This reliability is why professionals trust CMYK for their business cards. It guarantees that whether you're printing a small batch or thousands, the colours will remain uniform, reinforcing a polished and professional brand image.
Crafting the perfect invitation involves more than just choosing elegant text; colour selection plays a crucial role, too. Utilising the nuances of CMYK can beautify your invitations, ensuring they capture the occasion's essence.
Achieving rich blacks and vibrant hues is important to make each detail stand out. Print design tailored for your invite can yield consistent results, whether for weddings or parties. Consider how colours translate across different devices, ensuring your printed invitations maintain the desired impact for every guest.
T-shirts offer a fantastic canvas for creative expression, particularly in the world of graphic design. Utilising a range of colours, designers can leverage the nuances of CMYK versus RGB to ensure stunning colour reproduction.
Whether it's a vibrant logo or a striking illustration, understanding how colours translate into print is crucial. Employing high-quality inks and offset printing techniques results in rich blacks and bold hues, making your t-shirt designs pop.
Creating a custom greeting card is a wonderful way to share a personal message. With CMYK, your print design can be as simple or as elaborate as you wish. The process allows for beautiful colour gradients, vibrant illustrations, and crisp photographs, giving you complete creative control.
For an extra touch of quality, you can use a "rich black" for text or backgrounds to make them appear deeper and more solid. You can also combine the standard process with spot colours for metallic or fluorescent accents, making your greeting cards truly stand out.
At Ex Why Zed, we bring your creative ideas to life with beautiful, high-quality prints, from zines and art books to personal catalogues and photo projects. Using professional CMYK colour printing, we make sure every colour looks bright, balanced, and perfectly matches your design as it appears on screen.
You’ll get quick turnaround times, eco-friendly materials, and real people who care about your project every step of the way. With our focus on quality and creativity, your prints won’t just look good; they’ll feel unforgettable.
Get in touch with us today to start your next print project and experience the difference expert craftsmanship can make!
Understanding the CMYK colour model is essential for anyone involved in printing. Remember, the right colours can evoke emotions and convey messages effectively, making your designs stand out.
As you continue to explore the world of colour printing, don't hesitate to experiment with different CMYK combinations to achieve the best results. For personalised advice on selecting the perfect CMYK profiles for your projects, feel free to get in touch!
Common CMYK values include “true black” (C:0, M:0, Y:0, K:100) and “rich black” (C:60, M:40, Y:40, K:100). Printers mix these colour percentages to reproduce accurate tones for professional-quality prints.
You can convert CMYK and RGB using software like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. Change the document’s colour mode under “Image” or “File” settings to prepare designs for either digital screens or printing.
Use your design software’s colour picker and consult your printer. For brand consistency, a Pantone-to-CMYK conversion guide ensures the closest colour match across brochures, packaging, and other printed materials.
CMYK means Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black). Printers combine microscopic ink dots of these colours to absorb light, producing realistic shades and accurate colour tones on printed materials.
CMYK is the industry standard for professional printing because it ensures colour accuracy, consistency, and sharpness across flyers, posters, magazines, and other materials requiring high-quality colour reproduction.
CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black). These four inks are layered together in varying percentages to create full-colour prints with depth, tone balance, and visual accuracy.
CMYK is designed for print because it uses real ink on paper, unlike RGB, which is light-based. CMYK ensures colours appear consistent, realistic, and true in printed materials.
The cover of your zine is the first thing that people see. It's your chance to make a bold, attention-grabbing statement. One of the most effective ways to do this is through the use of colour. But not just any colour - we're talking about CMYK colours. CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black), the four inks used in the traditional method of printing hard copies.
While coloured paper can certainly add a unique touch to your zine cover, it comes with its own set of challenges. For one, there are only a limited number of colours available. And even if you find the perfect shade, the cost can be prohibitive, especially for indie presses.
Instead of using coloured paper, we recommend printing a flat colour as a background. This technique allows you to achieve the same visual appearance as coloured paper, but with more flexibility and at a lower cost. You can choose from millions of colours, and you can even print different graphics on the reverse side of the page.
Here is a quick video to Printing a coloured cover as a cost-saving alternative to using a premium coloured card.
• The best black to use for text is 0/0/0/100. This is 0% cyan, 0% magenta, 0% yellow and 100% black.
• For a dynamic jet black background colour, go for 30/30/30/100.
• If you want to print a right colourful red in CMYK then select your content to 0/100/100/10.
• A bright CMYK is 100/40/0/0, a medium blue is 100/80/10/0 and navy is 100/70/0/70.
• Royal Blue is very hard to print in CMYK.
• Bright yellow you can stick to 0/0/100/0 - easy!
• Gold is not easy to replace because CMYK inks are not metallic or as dynamic as foiling so don't have the shine.
• A mid tone, grass green would be 50/0/80/0 and for a dark, Racing Green use 90/0/100/70.
When it comes to printing a flat colour, uncoated paper is the way to go. The matte finish and slight grain of uncoated paper lend themselves well to overall background colours. It gives the impression that the paper itself is the actual colour, which is the effect we're trying to achieve.
If you're using a cover weight of 170gsm or thicker, we recommend applying a matt lamination to the front cover. This thin layer of film protects the fibres of the paper, allowing us to fold it without any issues of cracking.
Below is a cover with a solid red background colour and you can see when we folded the sheet, the fibres of the card have opened up. Lamination prevents against this happening.
If you're looking for a way to give your zine cover a premium feel without the premium price tag, we have a hack for you. You can download high-resolution close-ups of papers from the G. F Smith website and use them as the background on your InDesign artwork. This gives the appearance of coloured, textured paper or card.
What is a CMYK colour guide for printing?
CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black). These are the four inks used in the traditional method of printing. All printers use CMYK ink.
• The best black to use for text is 0/0/0/100. This is 0% cyan, 0% magenta, 0% yellow and 100% black.
• For a dynamic jet black background colour, go for 30/30/30/100.
• If you want to print a bright colourful red in CMYK then select your content to 0/100/100/10.
• A bright CMYK blue is 100/40/0/0, a medium blue is 100/80/10/0 and navy is 100/70/0/70.
• Royal Blue is very hard to print in CMYK.
• For Bright Yellow you can stick to 0/0/100/0 - easy!
• Again, gold is not easy to replace because CMYK inks are not metallic so don't have the shine. We can print metallic gold on our litho press but this process is more effective for 500 copies or more (the set-up costs are higher on that machine).
Which colours print well in CMYK?
Most colours print well in CMYK, but it's important to note that CMYK cannot reproduce all the colours that you can see on your computer screen in RGB (Red, Green, Blue) mode.
Our free paper sample swatches come with an alphabet on the reverse. Each letter is printed with a different CMYK setting to help you choose which will work best. The front card has a key of CMYK% of each letter so note that down and drop it in on your artwork. Easy!
To print vibrant colours in CMYK, it is best to convert any images in Photoshop then adjust the color balance, brightness and levels to boost them up after conversion.
In your design software, you can usually find the option to set your artwork in CMYK in the colour settings or preferences.
Bright colours, fluorescents, neons, metallics and royal blues tend to look more muted in CMYK ink.
Creating a standout zine cover is an exciting process that allows your imagination to run wild. By understanding the nuances of CMYK printing, you can create vibrant, attention-grabbing covers that truly represent your unique vision. So go ahead, experiment with different colours, textures, and finishes. The world of zine printing is your oyster!