Design color and printed design color does not match. What do i do to make them meet?

Question

I use Photoshop CS 5 in making packaging designs. I love the colors that i see in the monitor but when i print it the colors are different.
What is the ideal color setting for Photoshop? RGB and CMYK? And how is the correct setting when printing?
What do i do to make what i see in the monitor, what i print, and what the packaging supplier's print will be the same?

Answer 1

You have to calibrate your monitor first.... this should be a part of your regular maintenance..... some people do it on a weekly basis, others do it monthly.



THEN you can figure out what needs to be done. It could be the printer is a lower end model, or old and doesn't work as well as modern printers that automatically convert rgb to cmyk for you, or it could be cheap/low-quality ink, or low quality settings for the printer.



But you won't be able to know which one is the culprit or how to get it close without first calibrating your monitor. Do some searches on it and you'll find lots of resources, programs, and devices to assist you... some solutions are free, while some cost quite a bit.

Answer 2

If you are designing for 4-color offset printing, you need to work in CMYK. But, you also need to understand that what you see on the screen still will not exactly match what you see printed because you are working with light on the screen and ink on the paper. This is a problem many beginning designers make. What you have to do is choose the colors on your screen from standard printing colors, such as Pantone colors; and get yourself a Pantone swatch book so you can see exactly what the color you chose is supposed to look like (very expensive); and consider the on-screen version merely a sample mock-up. If you want to see the colors as they truly are, you need to have a sample printed. As you become more experienced, you will be able to see what's on the screen and "adjust" it in your head to know that "OK I am making this box here Pantone 513C and I know that shows up more green on the screen than it really is" - and you will be able to visualize how it's going to turn out printed.



You can also calibrate your monitor with a profile that will match the swatch book as closely as possible but still, it's not going to be EXACTLY the same as what's printed - because computer colors are made with light and printed colors are made with ink.



The way colors look when printed also changes based on what kind of paper is being used. Again, the only way to make sure it's the way you want is to have proofs printed.

Answer 3

There is a good chance you can't, unless you spend a small fortune on your monitor, etc. - You are asking ink colors on some grade of paper to come out the same as light colors on a backlit display.

You need to specify your print colors using a standard that printers use - like Pantone https://www.google.com/search?q=pantone+colors&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a and learn to select from the color chart and life with how close you get on the screen and on your local printer.