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The Problem with Matching Monitor Colours to Print Colours. Question: The colours in my printed brochure don’t look like they did when I viewed the file on my monitor. Why? Answer: Think of colours as a big, happy albeit disjointed family. There’s Pantone, CMYK, RGB, B&W, Web-Safe and even a few others the family has quietly disowned (LAB & HSB are rumoured to have been adopted…). RGB colour is the diseased, unemployable cousin to Printable colours. You can have literally millions of different colours on your website if you wished to – no problem. However, prior to the advent of 24-bit displays, there were only 256 “web safe” colours that show up the same on everyone’s monitor whether Mac or PC. This meant that out of millions of possible colour combinations, only a fraction were virtually guaranteed to look the same across the board. Today, with 24-bit monitors commonplace, one might think the fractious colour family has healed and come together – surely technology has solved the problem of making all 16.4 million colours show up the same way. Sadly, such is not the case. Our eyes interpret colours and brightness and contrast differently, the kinds and amounts of direct and indirect lighting and how they affect a monitor are grossly endless and then there’s the not-so-small issue of no two monitors ever being calibrated exactly alike. Subsequently, we’re left with nothing short of a technicolour nightmare. To sum it up, what you see on screen may or may not be similar to the final printed piece. It’s a shot in the colour dark. How to solve this problem? If you’re absolutely adamant that the hazel green in your logo on your website must never, ever morph into that awful hunter sage you so despise, overcome this lost-in-translation colour issue by ordering a hi-res proof before your piece goes to print. The proof will be a virtual match to what the final printed version will look like so there will be no surprises when 500,000 brochures show up in your office and the cover is a stomach-churning maroon instead of the soothing red you saw on your monitor. A good graphic designer will recommend a proof and a great printer will demand it. Ultimately, this is the only absolute way to know exactly what your printed piece will look like... and how well your monitor is colour calibrated. |
