Get To Grips With Colour Space

George cairns explains how to identify and correct unprintable colours so that the printed version looks similar to what you see on screen

- George Cairns

We processed the colours and tones in the landscape photograph shown below to reveal more detail in the image and create more attractive vibrant looking colours. However, after processing a photo to look good on screen, it can then be frustrating to end up with a print that looks less bright and vibrant than the digital version of the photo.

Your printer may struggle to reproduce the processed picture’s colour accurately. This is because computer displays produce millions of colours by mixing reds, greens and blues (RGB) together, while most domestic printers combine cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) to create a narrower range of colours. Colours that can’t be printed are referred to as ‘out of gamut’ colours. The image on your monitor is also brightly illuminated, leading to vibrant colours that can look comparatively drab on paper.