Blue Color in Illustrator

The only way to get close to that blue is to use a Spot color, not CMYK...

How is defining a spot swatch from a library going to "get closer to" the subject blue?

First, setting up a spot swatch does not in any way enable your RGB glowing monitor to display colors it cannot display in a RGB mix. All the monitor ever displays is RGB. It never actually displays a spot color from a Color Book Swatch Library; it merely displays an RGB approximation of it. Defining a Spot Swatch is not going to magically cause the monitor to be able display more RGB combinations. Moreover, Ryana already has exactly "that blue" displaying on the monitor. As stated, the subject desired blue is the RGB color in the original post screenshot.

Second, Using a spot color swatch is not going to help someone achieve that color in a dye-sublimation printing process unless a corresponding physical spot ink is available for the target printer. Dye based inks are often somewhat more brilliant than CMYK offset inks, just as watercolors are often more brilliant than oil paints. But that doesn't mean a sublimation dye even exists that corresponds to a spot ink selected from Pantone's color book for offset printing inks (or any other manufacturer's color book library).

If the solution here was to merely define a Spot Swatch, Ryana could simply sample the desired blue with the Eyedropper Tool, define a color Swatch, and then specify that Swatch to be treated as a spot color. Spot Swatches don't have to be selected from a "Color Book" Swatch Library. If you know what spot ink you are specifying, its on screen display doesn't even matter. By definition, all that affects the printed color of a spot color is the ink that is actually loaded into the printing device. So how does selecting a spot color from any of the provided Color Books get Ryana any closer to a solution without even knowing if a matching dyes or ink is even available for the sublimation printing device?

The only way selecting a Spot Swatch from one of Illustrator's spot Color Books would be of any help is if one of those Color Books represented inks available for the target sublimation printer. And just as with offset printing, that doesn't ensure an accurate printed match to what is merely a published recommendation for simulating a physical ink on screen. (Many Pantone inks simply cannot be closely simulated on the monitor.)

Brilliant blues is one of the weakest areas in offset process printing because of the nature of cyan ink. Inkjet process dyes (sublimation printers are often inkjets) can be brighter than offset printing inks. But sublimation printing is still a reflective printing medium. You're not going to get a glowing fluorescent neon blue in any printing process without actually laying down a glowing fluorescent neon blue ink.

This thread is simply about the fundamental common misconceptions that:

• "Any color" can be replicated by an RGB monitor.
• Process reproduction (be it RGB or CMYK) can render "any color."

The simple fact is, neither is true.

JET

the printer we use uses cmyk ink to print.

So, it won't work then in CMYK?

I assumed it wouldn't work because it's for a heat sublimation print. I think the program the client used to create this also may have made the graphics more detailed than they really are.