Question about color issues...

[ChicWallArt]

Hello everyone!

I am new to the digitalprint team and I am trying to find some answers to a problem I am having with some of my prints.

I have been sending my prints to Costco and the colors are not turning out like the computer screen shows... I understand it will never be exact, but the colors have been WAY OFF. I use photoshop, and I even downloaded the Costco color profiles.

Does anyone know how to help me? Does anyone have a color palate that works with Costco?

Thanks!
Rachael

[ModernPinkPaper]

can you describe the color difference?

such as, if your reds, orangy? or is your blues, more of a green? is yor yellows orangy?

[ChicWallArt]

Greys looking brownish... yellows orangy... even lime green being dark green!! Im looking for someone who uses costco who has a compatable color palate... I would pay some big bucks to land my hands on that! :)

[ModernPinkPaper]

Humm, can't answer it for you. However, have you asked the people at cosco? they might have experience in this.

[ChicWallArt]

Yes, we have become good friends...lol...

Thank you for your efforts :)

[PSDesignPrint]

Are you using CMYK color profiles? Photoshop almost always defaults to an RGB profile (a really wide, on screen color gamut) Print devices only use CYMK, a much, much narrower color profile. You shouldn't be able to print a true lime green at all really, or a deep navy blue (usually comes out purple) Bright orange (might appear brown), anything neon..

As for your greys, make sure you use a pure halftone of black, 15% black, 45% black etc. This way they have no chance of swaying in color.

If you can, design in InDesign or Illustrator, these program were made for print. Photoshop, was made for editing photos for a developing print process - Or web design.

I hope this helps a tad bit!

[PunkalunkPrintables]

I use Publisher, but have also experienced a lot of color variability with Costco. They seem to do fine with darker colors, but I used orange recently and it came back brown! Yuck. Anyway, I've had much more consistent results with iprintfromhome.com. Beautiful prints, inexpensive for the 8x10s I do, and they usually arrive within a couple of days. Good luck!

[ChicWallArt]

Thank you all for your help!!!

[Former_Member]

Calibrate your monitor (I use a Spyder device)
Download the color profile for your Costco Printer at the following link
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/
They provide instructions on how to use it in Photoshop, etc.

[Former_Member]

Illustrator has an option "save with color profile" or smth like this during the export process. Look for the same in Photoshop, save your picture in different formats (jpg, png) and looking in dialog menu anything about saving/including into file color profile

[Former_Member]

Yes try the color profiles and there are different ones for commercial printing like for Costco. Look at all of them and choose the best one. I read this great book tutorial and it was very helpful. Adobe Illustrator tutorial. You could find the answer online too.

[MandalaBunnyDigital]

I don't really know how to fix your problem, but I want to mention that bright colors are super hard to print. I have a lot of trouble with green in particular. i can literally never get a bright green to print, it's always dark. Some of the problem may just be impossible due to the difference in CMYK vs RGB colors.

[KinAndCaboodle]

There's been a lot of good advice so far, but if you're like me you may find that no amount of monitor calibration or CMYK conversion could fix the color problems.

Before I started printing myself, I would get totally frustrated with the variations from monitor to print from my local print shop (even after my monitor was calibrated). Here's the hack of a solution I came up with--which isn't great, but it worked for me until I bought my own printer.

I had some test prints created that showed many different colors. I sat them beside my monitor and adjusted my art to match the printed art. I noted the settings and created an action that did the opposite of the adjustments I had made.

For example, if I decreased the brightness by 10 and decreased saturation by 6 to make the screen look like the print, I increased the brightness by 10 and increased saturation by 6 in the action. So, once I created my art, I would run the action to get a print-ready file. The file looked yucky on screen, but printed out with the intended colors.

It was a headache to get the adjustments just right--I had lots of test prints made to get it just right, but it did work. However, if the print shop calibrates colors or use a different machine to print, it's back to step 1. :( Good luck!