A design looks juicy and intense on the monitor, and after printing the colours suddenly become calmer, darker or slightly different. This is one of the most common causes of disappointment in print - and it does not at all mean something went wrong. A screen and paper create colour in two completely different ways, so the difference between them is built into the physics itself. The good news: once you understand where it comes from, you stop fearing it and learn to predict it.
- A screen creates colour with light (RGB), print does it with ink on paper (CMYK).
- Some colours from the monitor are unreachable in print - a difference of range, called the gamut.
- A colour profile translates colours between devices; for coated paper it is usually Coated Fogra 39.
- Printing on CDs and DVDs uses a separate profile - Coated Fogra 27.
- Black in print comes in several forms; rich black is used for large areas.
- Working in CMYK from the start saves surprises on the print.
Two different recipes for the same colour
Imagine two ways to get yellow. In the first you shine coloured torches on a white wall and mix light. In the second you mix paints in a bucket and paint a sheet. Both give yellow, but they are two different mechanisms - and that is exactly how a screen and paper differ.
A monitor uses the RGB model: each pixel builds light from three colours - red, green and blue. The more light you add, the brighter it gets, and all three at maximum give white. This is additive mixing, that is, by adding light. A screen emits its own light, so colours can be very bright and saturated.
Print works the other way round. On paper there is no light of its own - there is ink, which absorbs part of the light coming from the surroundings and reflects the rest. That is the CMYK model: cyan, magenta, yellow and black (K for key). The more ink you lay down, the more light you absorb, so it gets darker. This is subtractive mixing, that is, by taking light away. Paper does not glow - it can only reflect what it gets from a lamp or a window.
Gamut, or why some colours disappear
Since these are two different mechanisms, each can show a different range of colours. That range is called the gamut. The screen gamut and the print gamut partly overlap, but they are not identical - and that is the heart of the problem.
A glowing screen handles intense, vivid colours beautifully: electric blue, neon green, juicy orange. Ink on paper cannot catch up, because reflected light will always be calmer than emitted light. That is why the loudest colours from the monitor come out slightly muted in print. Not because the printer got it wrong - those colours simply cannot be built physically from four inks.
The screen does not lie out of ill will. It can simply show colours that paper cannot reproduce - and a design has to be prepared for paper, not for the monitor.
When a colour outside the print gamut reaches prepress, the system has to replace it with the nearest possible one. If it does that uncontrolled - at the last moment, automatically - the result can be unpredictable. That is why it is better to make this decision consciously, still at the design stage. The colours that suffer most are the most saturated ones: intense greens, deep purples and bright oranges. If you know this in advance, you can tone them down slightly in the design and avoid the impression that the print "lost" the colour.
The colour profile - a translator between devices
This is where the colour profile comes in. It is a set of data that says how given colours should look on a specific substrate and with a specific technology. You can treat it like a translator: it takes a colour from the design and renders it into a language the printing machine and the given paper understand.
For standard printing on coated paper (coated, gloss or matte), the Coated Fogra 39 profile is most often used. It is a proven standard for European offset printing on coated papers - if you prepare the file for it, the colours on the print will be close to what you planned.
A separate case is printing on CD discs. The disc surface and the way ink is applied differ from paper, so a different profile applies here - Coated Fogra 27. This is an important detail: the same graphic file printed on a flyer and on a disc can give slightly different colours, because it works on a different substrate and a different profile. If you are preparing a design for discs, see our notes on preparing files to choose the right settings.
Before you start a design, check what it will be printed on and set the matching profile in your graphics program right at the start. Changing the profile at the end, when the file is ready, can shift all the colours at once - it is better to have the right translator from the very first line.
Black that is not just one black
Black seems simple, and in print it can be surprising. The simplest is pure black ink, marked as K, that is the black component alone without the others. It works great for small text - it is sharp, does not smudge and does not require perfect registration of inks.
The problem appears with large black areas. Black ink alone can look flat, greyish and shallow on them. That is why for backgrounds, banners or covers you use rich black - black enriched with a touch of the remaining inks (cyan, magenta and yellow). The effect is deeper, more velvety and simply blacker.
A caution the other way: rich black is not used for small text. If a letter were made of four inks at once, the slightest shift in print would produce coloured outlines at the edges and the text would lose its sharpness. The rule is simple - small text on pure K, large areas on rich black.
Monitor calibration - so the screen does not make things up
Even working in CMYK will not help if the monitor itself shows colours unreliably. Every screen sets colours a little differently out of the box - one pulls towards cold blue, another towards a warmer shade, and the default brightness in a shop is often greatly overstated. The result: what you see may differ from what is really in the file.
The answer is monitor calibration - setting the screen so it shows colours in line with a standard. The most accurate way is a hardware calibrator, but even a basic adjustment of brightness and colour temperature helps. The point is for the screen to be a reliable reference, not a source of false expectations. If the monitor lies, it is not the print that failed - you are comparing the print with the wrong benchmark.
Set the monitor brightness to a moderate level and judge colours in steady, neutral light - not in full sun and not under a warm bulb. Colours look different in the morning by a window and different in the evening by a lamp, so it is worth having one repeatable lighting setup for reviewing designs.
How to prepare a file without surprises
The simplest advice is: work in CMYK from the start if the file is going to print. A design built straight away in the print gamut will not give you colours on screen that you would not get on paper anyway - which means you avoid an unpleasant clash with reality at the very end. Converting from RGB only when handing over the file is a lottery in which the most saturated colours suffer the most.
In practice a few habits are worth remembering: set the right profile (Coated Fogra 39 for paper, Coated Fogra 27 for discs) at the start, keep small text on pure black, make large black areas rich black, and calibrate the monitor so you can trust it. If you care about a specific brand shade, mention it when ordering - it is easier to match the colour beforehand than to explain the difference after printing.
Colour is only one element of a well-prepared file. Just as important are the margins and the bleed, which we cover in a separate post on bleeds and preparing files. If you have doubts about the settings of a specific order, see the frequently asked questions or simply choose a product in our catalogue - for each one we will suggest how to prepare the artwork so the print matches your intent.
