Should I use CMYK or RGB for Print-Ready Graphic Design?

When creating designs for your business, it’s easy to focus on the aesthetic side of things, and trust that the software you use (e.g. Canva, Adobe Photoshop) would know how to best tweak the technical details so you get the best result. However, if you want your graphic design to look the best when printed, you have to learn about colour modes.

In graphic design, colour modes are different systems and settings of colour that help your printed design match what you created on the screen. The quality, colours, and brightness of what is on your screen is different to what a printer can produce, and what the eye can see on a physical object.

Two most common colour modes are RGB and CMYK. Knowing what these are and making sure that the design software you use is using the correct colour mode helps your brand create cohesive and similar results every time.

RGB colour mode is created of 3 basic colours of Red, Green, and Blue. This colour system is optimized to look its best on your monitor, laptop, and phone screen.

Most design softwares set their default colour mode to RGB on the assumption that most of their users are creating graphics fit for social media, websites, and emails. They are best saved as JPG/JPEG, PNG, and GIF formats, all set for digital use.

CMYK colour mode is created of 4 basic colours of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. These are the basic colours almost all printers use to print anything. For this reason, CMYK is optimized to match printed colours most closely.

By designing your graphics in CMYK, and making sure the settings on your software are set to CMYK, you ensure that what you see on screen matches the printed material the most. They are best saved as PDF, TIFF, PSD, and AI files because those formats save CMYK colour info.

While printers can print RGB graphics and files, the printed result might look drastically different to the design you created. Printers do not have the facilities to create the brightness and saturation of screens, and RGB colours can never be perfectly translated to CMYK tones. Printers try to create your RGB design to the best of their abilities using Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black inks. By allowing the Persis Design team to design your artwork, you can make sure the design is print-ready and optimized for printing machines.

This means that if you have printed your design, and the colours seem faded, destaurated, or darker than you had on your screen, the problem is not in the design or the printer, but the settings on which your design software was on while you were designing.

Save time and effort by allowing Persis Print’s in-house graphic designers design your work; this way, you can be sure that the colours will be accurate and close to your vision. Making sure you have the correct colour mode settings on your designing software makes sure that what you design matches the final printed work as closely as possible. By learning which colours in CMYK match your RGB colours the closest, you can ensure your final prints are as vibrant as your brand guidelines. Lastly, by saving in the correct format that can encode CMYK info, you can guarantee the final printed work will look its best.