Why do printed CMYK blues look less saturated than sRGB on a monitor?
Asked 8/29/2014
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I understand that sRGB and CMYK have different gamuts, and it seems that very saturated blues in sRGB are outside what CMYK printing can reproduce.
For example, if I create an image in Photoshop in sRGB and fill it with pure blue (RGB 0,0,255), then print it on a printer/profile that uses CMYK, should I expect the print to look less saturated or less “blue” than it does on a correctly calibrated monitor?
If so, why is CMYK used for printing at all? And if wider RGB spaces such as ProPhoto RGB can represent more colors, why don’t we just use one universal color space for everything instead of having different spaces for display and print?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
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CMYK
CMYK is a subtractive colour model rather than an additive as in the case of sRGB. The subtractive colour models are used in printing since they allow dyes, ink or paint pigments to absorb certain wavelengths from an otherwise white surface. The dyes, ink and paint pigments can be a very limited discrete set that are mixed to get a wide range of colours.
CMYK uses cyan, magenta and yellow as well as black (key) as ink in the printing process. A result of using CMYK is that you can't get as saturated colours as in sRGB especially in the blue part of the spectrum.
sRGB
The sRGB is an additive colour model. An additive colour model on the other hand builds upon black and usually three primary colours, red, green and blue are used. Adding all three colours ideally yields white. A result of using sRGB is that you can't get a cyan as saturated as you can with CMYK.
This technique fits computer monitors and television screens since they illuminate an otherwise black screen.
Since these colour spaces are used for different media, they both have a place. Using a single colour model with a single colour space may result in unwanted and unexpected colours if printed or displayed on a media that has to convert the colour model first. This is the case with most printers printing an image defined with sRGB.
Originally by user21986. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user21986
11y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes. A very saturated sRGB blue such as RGB(0,0,255) will often print less saturated than it appears on a monitor, because many printers/printing processes cannot reproduce that color. Displays use additive RGB light; printing uses subtractive inks on white paper, which has a different and usually smaller gamut in some regions, especially saturated blues.
CMYK is used because printing is a physical ink process. Offset presses and similar systems lay down cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks, and those inks simply cannot produce every color a monitor can emit.
A larger working space like ProPhoto RGB is useful for editing and storing more color information, but it does not make a printer or monitor capable of reproducing those extra colors. Output is always limited by the actual device and medium.
So there is no single “universal” space where one value always equals the same visible color on every device. Different devices have different physical capabilities, and color management maps image data from a source space to the destination device gamut as accurately as possible.
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