: If I make a design in RGB mode and then change it to CMYK how will it look when it's printed? I'm making a business card in Photoshop and it needs to be in CMYK mode. Now, I'm using a

@Merenda852

Don't do that. Never, never, never design something to be printed in anything other than the printing mode that will be used. Why? There are many technical reasons. but the main one is that the color modes are not compatible. There is no equivalent CMYK color for a vast range of RGB colors. Also, when you do work in CMYK, don't even bother looking at the monitor. Use a CMYK swatch book printed on the exact same paper stock as you will be printing on, and then get a matchprint or other "contract" proof from the printer. To do otherwise is to prove you are (1) An amateur, not a professional designer, and (2) Not interested in quality (same as 1, really), and (3) made of money, because you will have to eat the cost of bad printing that's your fault.

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@Murphy569

Firstly, when you change color modes, you should use Photoshop's Edit->Convert to profile function. This will allow you to map the colors to the new profile in the least-obtrusive way. This should prevent the logo or other asset from noticeably changing colors.

Secondly, the reason people do print designs in CMYK is precisely because it allows them to work in the same color space as the printed result. However, you still need to have 2 things for truly accurate color reproduction:


Your monitor has to be calibrated properly. There are various ways of doing this, but usually the best way is using a colorimeter to calibrate your monitor and generate an ICC profile that can be used to accurately map your monitor's output with other color spaces.
Your printer has to be calibrated properly. If you're using a professional printing service, then they should have this part handled.
Ideally, you'd also have the ICC profile of the printer/paper you'll be printing with.


If you can get the ICC profile from your printer, then you can go to View->Proof Setup->Custom... and choose the ICC profile you received. Otherwise, the best you can do is soft proof on "Working CMYK".

Though, to be safe, you should also try to get a hard proof or contract proof to make sure things turn out exactly the way you want, especially if it's a large print job for something as important as a business card.

Note: Some printing services prefer that all files are kept in RGB. For instance, Blurb—the self-publishing service—requires all images and print files to be sent in RGB format. Perhaps this is because they also create e-books, or perhaps it's to simplify the process for end-users, but that's how they do things. And the ICC profile they provide for soft-proofing is an sRGB profile.

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