Printable View
Hello,
I'm an amatore graphic designer, I use of Xara Xtreme. I've designed a postal card but when I printed the file, the quality was darker than the original one in screen. I printed on different pages. in normal paper is better than other but on special paper (postal card) is really bad. Which format is suitable for prints work. And is there any setting for PDF format to change ??
Hi Terenkleon, welcome to Talkgraphics.
The problem is due to the difference in screen color (RGB) and print color (CMYK). You can view your work in simulated print color by going to the Window menu > Show Printer Colors > Simulate Print Colors. What you see will still be a little brighter than you will get from a printer so you may need to experiment by making some test prints and adjusting the colors in your work.
If you are a graphic designer, it would pay to purchase swatch books for seeing how various colors will look when printed. the type of stock, coated versus uncoated, makes a difference due to ink absorption. Coated stock the print will look lighter and perhaps brighter as ink doesn't get absorbed as much as uncoated stock.
Design in CMYK if the intent is professional printing. Trust the swatch books though there will still be color shifting due to different presses and papers. But they will give you a basis for tweaking color values.
The ones I heartily recommend are available for both coated and uncoated stock and are relatively inexpensive.
http://www.tintbooks.com/index.htm
If you are going to use Pantone colors, you are likely stuck purchasing color books direct from Pantone but are only needed to visually match Pantone color or picking CMYK "equivalents," which are close but not a match per se.
Take care, Mike
What did you print this card on and what did you print it with?Quote:
Originally Posted by terenkleon
My question is very similar to Frank's. Are you using your own printer, desktop printer, or are you sending it away to a print shop to be printed? If it is the later then go with #post 2 suggestions along with #post 3. Also if your are using a certain print shop frequently get a colour chart printed but make sure that each colour has also it values printed as well so that you only use a restricted palette and that you know when you pick a colour what it will look like when printed in CMYK. If it is the first then through your printer driver control the flow of ink when your printing on thick card. Also either here or on the internet do a search on printing in CMYK from RGB, also look at your PDF export in Acrobat. Even from true CMYK programmes from Adobe certain colours will always give you some cause for concern.
You may want to familiarize yourself with different paper stocks. Different paper stocks deliver different result.
Different stocks print differently because of the ink absorption so you can't expect prints to turn out identically for different papers. That's why it's good to have some paper or cards in stock for making test prints, so that you can make adjustments to your designs before you print the final output.