How to keep vibrancy of colors when converting from RGB to CMYK in pdf?

Report · Jun 12, 2020

Hi!

So, I'm trying to print some pdf documents that I was given, and I discovered that they were using an RGB color profile instead of CMYK. For the majority of the documents, the colors look the same when I convert them, but for some of the documents that have some more vibrant colors (a very vibrant blue), they become much duller. I've been using this tutorial from Adobe on how to convert RGB to CMYK but I don't see anything on maintaining vibrancy: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/color-conversion-ink-management-acrobat.html

Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you!

Report · Jun 12, 2020

The real problem is that the gamut (i.e., range of colors) supported by typical printing CMYK color spaces is much smaller than the range of RGB colors that you can see on a computer monitor. Examples of such colors are the bright blues and bright greens you often see in office graphics. Ultimately, if you really need to maintain such vibrancy of colors, you must end of with a n-color printing process, CMYK plus additional colorants (bright green and orange, for example). Typically for such printing, you keep the colors in an ICC color managed workspace and let the printer's RIP do the color conversions as necessary to the n-colors.

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

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Report · Jun 12, 2020

The real problem is that the gamut (i.e., range of colors) supported by typical printing CMYK color spaces is much smaller than the range of RGB colors that you can see on a computer monitor. Examples of such colors are the bright blues and bright greens you often see in office graphics. Ultimately, if you really need to maintain such vibrancy of colors, you must end of with a n-color printing process, CMYK plus additional colorants (bright green and orange, for example). Typically for such printing, you keep the colors in an ICC color managed workspace and let the printer's RIP do the color conversions as necessary to the n-colors.

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

Report · Jun 12, 2020

Ok, thank you for responding!

So, with these documents is there any way to put the colors in an ICC color profile in Acrobat, so that the printing job maintains vibrancy?

Report · Jun 12, 2020

Please re-read my response. The problem is that standard CMYK printing simply cannot reproduce those intense colors! Sorry!

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)

Report · Jul 28, 2023

Dov,

I'm having problems with my Magenta printing as vibrantly in the CMYK space.

Things are coming out with a slight green tint. Glorious Colorado sunsets loose the pink purple.

Interior architectural spaces look like bad LED lighting.

What might you suggest other than matching the printers specificCMYK color space properties?

Should I drop green out of my images in photoshop ?

And then just try printing until I get it right?