Have you ever had printed items look different in colour? Does your design look different in colour when printed? Do your reds look orange or your greens look blue?
Let us explain!
There are many different printing companies out there that uses different machines and materials.
A majority of the small home businesses will use inkjet printers and a few small to large businesses will use laser printers, digital press machines, litho machines and more.
What it the difference between the two?
Printing businesses that use home printers (inkjet printers) will print in RGB colours and will usually only print up to 300gsm card stock. The ink would usually absorb into the card stock rather than sit on the card itself and would usually give a grainy look to the finish when looking closely to the colours / design.
Businesses that use laser printers and digital press machines will print in CMYK colours and can usually print up to 400-450gsm card stock. The ink/toner that is used in these machines would sit on top of the card itself and gives a more flawless finish on the finished product.
What's the difference between RGB and CMYK?
RGB uses a 3 colour system - Red, Green and Blue and are mixed to create a close match on screen
CMYK uses Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black and are mixed to create thousands of colours on paper
Each will use their own mixes to create a close match to what they see on screen.
Why does my printed item look different to what I see on screen?
Many problems we face in the printing industry is the colours are not matching completely to the customers design. There are many reasons for this, but the main one would be how you had your design made in the beginning.
Many designers will use CMYK to design any business stationery. If you take these designs to any digital printers, they will print exact to how they were designed, but if you choose to take it to a small home printer that uses inkjet printer, the finished product will be a lot different to what you see on screen.
It's the same vice versa. Quite a few designers that are home based printers themselves or have just started out will of course design using RGB as that is what they are used to working with on a daily basis, but take that design to a digital printer and it will not print as you see it on the screen.
The main reason for this is RGB and CMYK do not work together well!
Our tip for when it comes to designing and choosing your printing company is, make sure you have files ready in RGB and CMYK and when selecting your printer, you ask which one is more suitable for them.
What Happy Printz offer
We offer printing services for printed business stationery, using digital print machines (CMYK). We also offer free designing with your purchased stationery, which means they are designed in the correct format for us to print also, which in turn means that your printing will always be as you see it on screen.
Want to see our results??
Happy Printz - The home of printed stationery