I've designed some artwork which I originally planned to only print myself (on my home laser printer), and so I worked in RGB. I've since decided to do a print run in CMYK (outsourcing to a 4-colour offset printer). I'll be working in CMYK going forward, but this is going to be the awkward transition project from my old process.
I've been calibrating my RGB files to print as I want on my laser printer, and have them at a point where I'm very happy with the colours as printed. I am aiming to roughly match these printed colours, not the colours I see on screen (which is to say, I'm already prepared for the limitations of intensity that come from reflective colours versus emitted colours).
I also do not need the CMYK print run to exactly colour match the files printed from RGB (and I know this is not possible). I am simply trying to get a similar 'balance' as far as overall hues and contrast.
I've noticed that when I directly convert the RGB files to CYMK, they appear much blacker on my screen (in addition to the dulling of blues, greens and purples I was expecting). I'm concerned that if I try to print the files without any adjustments, the resulting prints will be extremely dark and dull.
What I am curious about is: if I get the CMYK files as they appear on my screen to closely match the RGB files as they appear on my screen, will the CMYK prints match the RGB prints to a similar degree?
As an example, here is one image I am trying to prepare:
Would it be reasonable to expect that the far right image (when printed on a 4-colour offset printer), should turn out reasonably similar overall to the far left image (as printed on a standard home laser printer)? Or is there no correlation?
I will be getting a hard proof of my CMYK prints, but obviously the closer I can get in the first attempt the better.