Artwork Colour Guide - CMYK vs RGB

When looking at a computer screen, the image you see is made up of a number of pixels. These are made up of RGB (red, Green, Blue) colours. When it comes to large format printing, the dots and colours are made up of CMYK (Cyan, Magento, Yellow, Black) colours. This means we need your artwork to be supplied in CMYK to ensure it prints correctly.

In the image above, you can see how CMYK and RBG colours combine to create the colour spectrum.

If your artwork has been created in RGB rather than CMYK, this can be easily updated in design tools such as Photoshop, however you may find that this makes the colours slightly different to what you had seen on screen when it was in RGB. The CMYK Version is often closer to how the final print will look.
If a colour match is important, we reccomend getting a hard proof, or providing a CMYK or Pantone reference and we will do our best to colour match. If it is not vital, we are able to convert your file to CMYK for you. You can see an example below of RBG vs CMYK colours.

Photoshop - Existing File - Open your artwork > Navigate to Edit > Convert to Profile > Select CMYK Colour
Photoshop - New File - Select File > New > Colour Mode > CMYK Colour > Create your artwork

Illustrator - Existing File - Open your artwork > Edit > Select All and then Filter > Colours > Convert to CMYK
Illustrator - New File - File > New and select CMYK color for the colour mode > Create your artwork

Indesign - Default colour profile is CMYK. If wrong, then go Edit > Transparence Blend Space > Switch to CMYK

Canva - Share > Download > PDF Print > CMYK Colour Profile

We hope that this short article has helped you understand CMYK artwork a little better.
If you have any questions, or would like a free artwork consultation, please feel free to email or call us on 020 8664 5660.