Color Proofing

Some prints require colors to be spot on, or at least really close to either existing signage or other branding materials. There’s a few ways to go about color proofing, so that you can make sure your colors turn out exactly how you expect.

First things first, never color proof using your emailed art proof.

Almost every monitor displays colors differently, so it could appear to be different shades of the color depending on what monitor you’re using to view it. Another big reason to not use the emailed proof is because monitors display color using RGB, while digital printing is done using CMYK. Printing out your emailed art proof wont work either even though it will print in cmyk, because every printer is different, and your desk top print or wide/large format printer most likely wont match our printers.

There are two great ways to color proof a print if you’re worried about how the colors will turn out.

Option number one is to run a swatch of different color values that are close to the color you’re trying to match, this will give you options of colors to choose from and shows you real samples of what the colors will look like.

Option number two is to run a press proof. Press proofs are small versions of your final product, so you can see exactly what the print will look like before the full size version is ran.

Both of the options above will work because it will give you a physical samples of the colors that came off the printer.