Ever printed a photo that looked amazing on your screen, only for it to come out looking completely different? Don’t panic—your printer isn’t plotting against you. The issue comes down to how colours are created on screens versus on paper.
Let’s break it down and help you understand how to get your prints as close as possible to what you see on screen!
Your Monitor is Lying to You: The Secrets Behind RGB and CMYK
If you’ve ever replaced ink cartridges, you’ll know printers use Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK). But why do printers use these colours while your screen runs on Red, Green, and Blue (RGB)? And why don’t your printed photos always match what you see on your monitor?
It all comes down to how colour works in the digital and print worlds.
The Science of Colour
In everyday life, we deal with two types of colour systems, Additive and Subtractive colour:
1. Additive Colour (RGB) – The Science of Light
• Additive colour is created by mixing different coloured lights together.
• Think of a rainbow—pure white light contains all colours, which we only see when it’s refracted through something like a prism.
• The more additive colours you mix, the closer they get to white.
🔆 Used in anything that emits light:
✅ Computer monitors
✅ LED lights
✅ Smartphone screens
✅ TVs
2. Subtractive Colour (CMYK) – The Science of Ink & Paint
• Subtractive colour happens when an object absorbs certain colours of light and reflects others.
• A printed photo of a red apple looks red because the ink absorbs every colour except red, which bounces back into our eyes.
• The more subtractive colours you mix, the closer they get to black (because more light is absorbed).
🖨️ Used in anything that reflects light:
✅ Printed pages
✅ Fabric
✅ Paintings
✅ Photographs
RGB vs CMYK – Why the Colour Clash?
RGB stands for Red, Green, and Blue—the three primary colours of light. RGB can produce millions of bright, vivid colours—way more than a printer can handle. CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black—the primary colours of ink. Most printers can only use these four inks, so some colours from your screen can’t be printed exactly as they appear.
🎨 What does this mean?
• Some super bright RGB colours can’t be recreated in CMYK.
• Your printer picks the "closest match," which may look duller or different.
How to Minimise the Colour Gap
Want your prints to look as close as possible to what you see on your screen? Try these tips:
1. Use a Printer with More Inks
Some inkjet printers go beyond CMYK, adding extra colours like light cyan and light magenta to extend the range of colours they can print.
2. Convert to CMYK Before Printing
Designing something for print? Set your software to CMYK mode!
✅ Programs that let you work in CMYK:
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe InDesign
• CorelDRAW
• Microsoft Publisher
⚠️ Important: A monitor still shows colours in RGB, so it can’t display “true” CMYK colours, but switching to CMYK mode helps you get a better idea of what the final print will look like.
So next time you print a photo and wonder why it doesn’t look exactly the same as on your screen, it's just your screen vs the printer capability. But now that you know the secrets of RGB and CMYK, you can work around them and get the best results possible.
Happy printing! 🖨️🎨
