Best Practices - Converting Document from RGB to CYMK

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@lauren_8571  schrieb:

1) I have been editing my invitation in RGB. I can convert the document color space to CYMK, and in addition, a YouTube tutorial said I had to select all of my objects/artwork in the document and Edit Colors > Convert to CYMK. When I do this, the resulting picture on my screen looks pretty washed out. Is this cause for concern?

 

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After doing File > Document Color > CMYK, your document and all the objects in it are in the CMYK document color space. And at this moment the color will probably change. 

Technically you do not need to change the objects. This step with Edit Colors > Convert to CMYK is bonkers.

But you still might need to select objects and adjust their colors, because the conversion will affect some colors in a bad way, for example black or yellow. You need to change black to a pure 100 K black and you might need to select bright colors and adjust their values to reduce any amount of unneeded inks in them, for example cyan amounts in yellow.

Generally speaking, designs that are meant for print output should be designed in CMYK color space from the outset. RGB has a much wider gamut range than the CMYK color model. The reason why colors often look washed out when doing a blunt conversion from RGB to CMYK is the colors in the artwork are being broadly ramped down to fit with CMYK color space.

It's possible to design print-related documents in RGB mode, but care must be taken to choose colors that can be printed rather than choose colors with maximal intensity values. Certain printers with extra ink colors can print colors that go beyond the intensity limits of CMYK. However there are no printers that can output the full RGB model; that's impossible.

Importing a RGB-based PDF in Photoshop and then converting the contents to CMYK won't help the situation. Plus any vector-based contents from the original Illustrator layout will be rasterized into pixel-based artwork.

I think the best approach to use is creating a new CMYK-based Illustrator document and copying the contents from the original RGB layout into it. From there the colors of objects will need to be tweaked to get the desired look. Hopefully the artwork in the wedding invitation layout isn't too complicated.

Additional Edit: anyone designing graphics in RGB color space yet intending to convert the work to CMYK really needs to beware of using transparency effects in object fills, gradients, etc. Any transparency modes other than "Normal" (such as Multiply, Screen, Overlay, etc.) can lead to very obvious color shifts when copying/pasting the RGB artwork into a CMYK document. The color changes on transparency effects are very difficult, if not impossible to repair. You end up being forced to print RGB artwork as is and hoping the image setter or large format RIP application can do a better job outputting the RGB artwork rather than manually trying to convert it to CMYK within Illustrator.

Best to talk to your printer. CMYK will  most of the time be less vibrant than RGB.

But maybe your printer has a printing process that can capture more colors than the default conversion to CMYK.

If you convert your colors using the same profiles in Adobe applications, the result will be same.