13 votes
Accepted

Why are the colors of certain PNG files getting distorted when opened in Illustrator?

What probably happens: The screenshot is a 16-bit png, but illustrator reads it as an 8-bit png, using only the 8 lower (!) bits. Explanation For the following explanation we assume that the ...
  • 1,815
12 votes
Accepted

Can a GIF have a CMYK profile?

There is no mention of CMYK in the GIF specification, and it only supports color triplets. Take a peek at the syntax for color tables given by the spec: 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Field Name ...
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12 votes

Can a GIF have a CMYK profile?

The short answer is no, a GIF can't support a CMYK profile. A CMYK profile is a series off curves that map the percentage value of each separation to a target. GIF images are saved as INDEXED COLOUR,...
  • 9,448
12 votes
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What would happen if I made something - CMYK 100

I can't really claim to know much of anything about mixing house paint.... It's my understanding though that the mixing system is more akin to a Pantone mix than a CMYK mix. On screen, it would be ...
  • 204k
11 votes

Why aren't there printers that use red-green-blue ink cartridges?

To understand why printers do not use red, green, and blue ink to reproduce color from the light spectrum, you need to research CMYK printing. I'll avoid all the additive/subtractive explanation. ...
  • 204k
11 votes

Why aren't there printers that use red-green-blue ink cartridges?

Actually, there already exist printing systems which let you choose your colors. In screen or offset printing you can use any existing color to print something. Now lets say we'd choose red, green ...
  • 566
10 votes
Accepted

Why aren't there printers that use red-green-blue ink cartridges?

Introduction To understand this we need to look at the entire system. The system consists of at least 3 parts: the observers brain, light transfer to the eye and the technical system from where it ...
  • 56.7k
9 votes
Accepted

Text over background colored getting a weird yellow border

It's caused by anti-aliasing, used by Illustrator to display graphics without pixelated edges. However, anti-aliasing causes display artefacts when two colours butt up against each other. The problem ...
  • 79.2k
8 votes

Color mismatching on sketch exports

The developers are aware of the issue but aren't willing to fix it, they consider it a 'feature'. When we export an image, we interpret our color values in the sRGB colorspace. We also save the ...
8 votes

Photoshop: how to change from RGB to CMYK without any color loss

No, you can't expect RGB colors to translate exactly to CMYK for printing. Monitors make colors with light. Light can be any intensity. Ink is made of solid physical colors from things like rocks, ...
  • 1,027
7 votes

Color mismatching on sketch exports

The new versions of Sketch have an easy feature to make sure the colors when exporting are the same as the ones you see on your screen. Navigate to Preferences › General › Color Profile, and then ...
  • 171
7 votes

What are the shades of green?

Your question makes sense but there's no answer. These are all arbitrary names created by man to help classify spectrums. Green doesn't magically end at point X and start point Y. There's simply put ...
  • 23k
6 votes
Accepted

How to print a pure C , M , Y , K color using a regular inkjet printer?

Your Inkjet printer has to support CYMK. Thus double check before you proceed. Otherwise colours are always converted to RGB. Also make sure that the latest printer drivers are installed. You can ...
  • 276
6 votes
Accepted

InDesign: which CMYK color space to use

Why bother about color profiles? First of all you need to accept that different printers follow different standards. The same CMYK numbers will look differently when printed according to different ...
  • 20k
5 votes
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Why can't I just download a premade color profile from the internet for my monitor?

Any monitor worth the buying price will have a basic ICC color profile which should be downloadable from the manufacturer's website. (True of any device that produces visual output, including printers....
5 votes

How to embed a color profile into a PDF with Inkscape?

Inkscape cannot embed CMYK color profiles, sorry. Scribus can, though. Here's a workflow that I have successfully used to get a print-production-ready PDF (with the "ISO Coated v2 300% (ECI)" color ...
5 votes

Is it worth converting from SWOP V2 to FOGRA39?

The post is stating a fact. You dont need to see the correct color on your monitor. It is true that you dont need monitor calibration. Many designers can and do live without it. According to our ...
  • 56.7k
5 votes
Accepted

Defining Brand Colours

Yes, you should define a standard color profile to define your colors in. Its true that most brand guides dont specify this, and yes its wrong on many levels. For RGB choose either sRGB, or Adobe RGB....
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4 votes
Accepted

Converting PDF from RGB to CMYK with freeware or OSS

The already mentioned ghostscript is the free standard tool for this problem. If the use of the command line looks too daunting, you could use a free web service like: http://www.pdf2cmyk.com. You won'...
4 votes

How to print a pure C , M , Y , K color using a regular inkjet printer?

Only works if you've a way to map a given single color from one profile to another I faced the same issue and I wanted to print from one cartridge to just unclog a few nozzles without wasting ink ...
  • 141
4 votes

Pantone vs. CMYK colors - Please help

The Pantone color is for printing on a press that is using pantone inks. The hex color is for web design. Your office printer uses neither of those things and is a CMYK printer, so won't match ...
  • 50k
4 votes

jpeg colours not displaying correctly in Chrome, FF and Safari

Your *.jpg file has most probably a CMYK (print) colour profile embedded. Lots of browsers will then distort the colours. Try and re-save the files with an RGB profile and you'll be right as rain.
  • 25k
4 votes

Monitor color profile VS Design

It is important to understand what a color profile is. And the diference to color spaces, that is diferent. What calibrating a monitor is? The basic idea is that specialized hardware measures a series ...
  • 34.7k
4 votes
Accepted

What is the use of color mode 'bitmap' in Photoshop?

It can be said to be an (old) alternative to vector. I have used it for some very old logos and drawings, but more recently in signatures. It is not vectorized, and not anti-aliased, so it needs to ...
4 votes

What is the use of color mode 'bitmap' in Photoshop?

This is kind of a history thing, I'm sure the mode is being used in creative ways differently that how I describe, but --- In traditional PostScript-based offset (big printing press) printing the ...
4 votes

RGB to CMYK conversion problem

Grab a cyan marker. Make a line on two kinds of paper. One coated like a good magazine and one uncoated like a notebook. The resulting Cyan color is not the same, the color is not the same. The ...
  • 34.7k
4 votes
Accepted

Is it worth converting from SWOP V2 to FOGRA39?

If your screen isn't calibrated, then unless you know exactly what colours you are going to be using - I mean dialled-in Pantone colours specified by the client, not photographs - then you don't know ...
  • 4,544
4 votes

How do I ensure the file I send to an external printer will print correctly?

The ICC profile you received from the print provider is for their equipment. You should not expect the ICC profile to render proper colors on your equipment. For accurate color from your printer, you ...
  • 204k
4 votes
Accepted

What will the color of my image look like once printed?

In order for any application to display CMYK color correctly, that application must support CMYK color profiles. Nowhere on the ACDSee website is there any claim of CMYK support in the application. ...
  • 204k
4 votes
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Do colors like these have a specific name OR special "category" of names for each?

Colors don't have exact names. There is no such thing as salmon or dusty teal. These are descriptions. As with descriptions you can have any number of them for a said color. Its a bit like ...
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