Hi-
I’m a web designer that is sometimes asked to do print design for clients. I know print is different and I know I need to do 300dpi, but I don’t know much about color. Who wants CMYK? Who wants RGB? Who uses Pantone colors and are they CMYK or RGB based?
I could go on and on with the questions. I would love to find a great informational resource about print color that was written for web designers. Does anyone know of anything like this?
Most books that teach you to use a specific program (Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign) will have a chapter in the back that show you how to export for certain media - both print and web, usually in separate chapters. I know that the Classroom in a Book series does this, I can’t think of any others off the top of my head.
RGB is for colors displayed on you computer screen/monitor - or even a tv screen. (This is an example of additive color - light)
CMYK is for print, the specific ink combinations to get a certain color. (This is subtractive color - paints/inks)
Pantone is a pre-determined set of colors. It’s basically a system that makes it easier to match colors across the industry. I would have to say it’s used more for print/non-digital and includes variables like the type of paper you use, whether it is glossy or matte, and includes non CMYK print colors as well such as metallics and neons. (Web developers get along quite fine with just our hex color charts. Pantone is usually only used for web when you need to match a Pantone color for a company logo for example.)
If you’ve ever tried to switch between the two color modes you may notice that the colors shift slightly because it tries to make sure everything is within the correct gamut for that color profile. Or if you’ve created a brightly colored illustration that looks great on screen in RGB, but turns out dull and muted when you print it - that’s because those bright colors are out of the printing color range/gamut.
So yeah, that’s a quick summary. There are some general books that cover both topics, but you probably have a better bet getting a book for beginner print designers, especially since there are many different things to watch out for - like bleeds, crop marks and spot colors instead of web things like pixel dimensions, file size or alpha transparency.
I’d say for your print projects, start in CMYK and keep it in CMYK. And test prints are always a good idea to make sure it is what you/the client expected.