Color Proofing Your Printing Designs

Here’s a useful tip for all those looking into CD DVD Replication with printed materials.

When producing a CD product for the market, you want to be sure that it looks its best to reflect your professionalism and the utmost quality of your product. When you are creating you color designs for printing, you ought to know that every computer monitor is color-calibrated differently. For instance, a light-green image on your computer monitor, when printed, may actually appear several shades lighter or darker or even tinted with different, unwanted colors.

Part of the reason for this is due to a discrepancy in color models. While your television screens and computer monitors function in RGB (Red-Green-Blue) mode, the printing world operates in CMYK (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Key/Black).

What’s the difference?

RGB functions as additive colors. When combining red, green and blue lights you get white light. While RGB is ideal for producing colors with light on your computer monitors, colors printed on your designed inserts require a different approach.

This is where CMYK comes in. This color model utilizes Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black pigments that mix together in predetermined proportions to produce color on printed material.

A cover design as seen on your computer monitor

Actual image of Hard Copy with color variations

All PDF or Digital Proofs that you view on a computer monitor will fall short in reproducing the exact colors you see on your computer screen. While a Digital Proof is indeed useful in assessing for font consistency, typos, image placement, and approximate color consistency, it should not be solely relied upon to proof color. You are welcome to bring in your own match print for the purpose of color matching.

Whenever color accuracy is a priority in your printing order, be sure to purchase a Hard Proof copy. We offer this service in CD Replication orders of 500+ quantities.

The Hard Proof (sometimes called a proof print or match print) is a printed copy of what your design will look like once duplicated. It gives you the most accurate preview of the end product, and therefore ensures you the highest quality.

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