Why are colors less bright on paper than on a screen?

Everyone has seen the most beautiful colors online or on television. But once printed, the brightness of the colors is suddenly way less than expected. This is, however, very easy to explain and it has a very good reason!

CMYK and RGB colors

Printers work with a colourscheme of CMYK: Cyan, Magenta , Yellow and Key (black). By combining these colors, we can produce every color that you have in your file. However, the colors that you see online are based on a different colorscheme: RGB. This stands for Red, Green and Blue. By adding more light to your screen, RGB colors get brighter and more intense. With the absence of light, there will be no color.

Your computer and our printers

A difference in color can also happen very easily by a difference in settings in your computer. Standard computers that are used at home are never calibrated. Therefore, small differences can happen over time and you will see this in the colors. These small differences are big enough for your color to be totally different on another computer. Our computers and printers are calibrated once a week to guarantee the most realistic color and the true color of your file.

The material that we use to print, paper, stickers, panels, posters, etc. do not use any light. Thus, the colors will automatically be less bright than on your screen. We also use CMYK colors and not RGB colors. This means that if your file is made in RGB colors, it has to be changed to CMYK colors. And this will never have the same brightness.

Our advice

When creating print work, use CMYK colors. This way the colors will be printed the best, and will not be as different from your file. Almost every designprogram has the possibility to change the color settings from RGB to CMYK.

Is changing to CMYK not an option for you and you have to upload your file as it is? No problem, our system can automatically change this to CMYK colors. This however means that your colors can change from the original file.

Are you not sure if the colors will be correct when printed? Ask our customer service for the options to have a first impression of your order. This way you can see and change if necessary.