What adjustments are necessary to match printing to monitor display?

[Advocate]

First, I'm really enjoying Xara, which I purchased recently to design a custom card deck. However, after a long process of mixing and matching with the Color Editor to get just the right colors, I discovered that the specific colors and their brilliance aren't showing up when I print the images. The design was created with CMYK, 300 dpi, per the specs of the printing company which will produce the final product.

I've read everything I can that addresses this subject and I somewhat understand the inherent difference that what you see on-screen is not what you get printed. It isn't that the end result is bad; it's just that it's not as impressive (to me) as what I see on my display. I'm hoping that if I can create a beautiful luminous image from my lowly Brother desktop printer, that it's a sure bet the commercial printer will also produce a great image. Is my only recourse to experiment with the colors over and over until they look the way I want them to when printed out? There are several 4-color fills, as well as the fractal plasma background. Experimenting would be quite tedious.

On the attached image, the card on the left is a screen capture of the monitor display; the card on the right is a scan of the printed card. Neither one precisely duplicates what they actually look like (I created the composite image in Photoshop Elements), but it's a close enough depiction. Of course, everyone's screen will render the image differently

I'd be happy to attach the actual .xar file if that will help.

Also, if anyone knows how to somewhat easily transform the flat image of the moon into a sphere shape, please advise. I watched a tut on YouTube on how to create a sphere, but it had so many steps that frankly I got confused and the result was not even close to a sphere.

Thanks in advice for any advice or information.

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics

What is difficult for most people to understand is there is a world of difference between screen colors (RGB) and printed color (CMYK). Screen colors a composed of shades of red green and blue lights (LED) or phosphors. The gamut or number of colors that can be seen is much much higher for RGB color.

So even if your monitor is perfectly calibrated, the difference between what you see on the screen and what you see when printed is quite different.

The process color cyan prints much deeper, what I would call Peacock Blue. Blues, greens, violets tend to shift a lot and in printed form are much less bright and vibrant.

I have a very well calibrated monitor that can display over 1 billion colors vs. 16.7 million colors for most monitors but I know that the printed colors are going to look different.

I have been doing this long enough, and coming from a background of pre-computer advertising and graphic design, I can more or less predict how certain colors will translate from the screen into print. But in spite of what some people claim, to me it is still an inexact science.

My basic rule of thumb is, does the color look convincing. For example, if someone looked at the printed version of your playing cards, would they know if the color was shifted one way or the other? Now if you have flesh tones that have shifted towards green or purple or red or orange, these are more obvious shifts. But if the printed output is convincing, then that is all that really matters. Because your end user only sees what is in front of her or his eyes.

[Soquili]

In addition to what Gary has said, you may want to view your work using simulated print colours before making a print to paper.

Although it is not exactly how the colours will appear on paper, it will give you a sense of how the colours may shift.

The two sphere images are an example of how the show print colors option shifts the colours. The first is exported with Screen Colors enabled, the second is exported with Simulate Print Colors enabled.

[Advocate]

Thanks so much for the quick replies! First, gw, I appreciate the clarification. I knew there was a difference, but didn't know exactly what was causing it or how to adjust for it. However, it looks like soquili has shown the way by pointing out the "Show Printer Colors" option.

Wish I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, and start from the beginning. But as gw noted, if the observer doesn't know the color has shifted, then it makes no difference. Still, I'm going to try again with the Show Printer Colors option and see what happens. Maybe it won't take me as long as it did the first time.

Edit 1 hour later:

I selected the Show Printer Colors and, wow, everything went purple! But in the process of changing colors, et cetera, I experimented with Live Effects and found that the Emboss function allows me to adjust shine and luminosity. I printed it out and compared the versions. The result I got, shown here, still needs more work, especially on brightening the moon and the background, but I think I'm on my way. Thanks again

[Albacore]

Hold on, Bill stated that it is only an approx. of your actual output, there are two or three other methods I use! I tend to have quite a restricted palette that I use and I save it as a template and with those colours all displayed I get a wet copy of how they look printed so see what they actual look like when done in CMYK and I also print there values next to the colours. Next I always tick "View PDF when finished" as it also shows how dull the colours can be as they darker colours will all look washed out. After you have done a few print jobs, with the fist few I would always get a wet copy of your work, as your experience grows you will need less and less wet copies.

If you have a bitmap editor most will allow you to look at an RGB type file .png or .jpeg if you are going to use it in you Xara doc. and see the out of gamut areas which you have to rectify before importing it into Xara.

[Advocate]

Hi, Albacore

The problem is that the final product will be printed by an out-of-state company, so it's a little difficult as far as comparing what I have to what they'll print. They requested CMYK, but this is my first experience with CMYK and there's a lot to learn. I've created several color versions of the design, all in the blue range, and one of them is now pretty close to what I'm aiming for. They'll be sending proofs, but I don't want my lack of expertise to cause them to have to create several sets of proofs.

It's interesting that if I export a PNG using screen colors, it prints what it looks like on the screen display, but if I export while the image is displayed with Simulate Printing Colors, it prints those colors. Unfortunately, due to what I've discovered about monitor vs. printer, the face side of all 60 cards will have to be redone. This is what happens when a novice gets hold of a program like Xara.