Solving Your Print Colour Problems: “Why do my prints look dull?”

You’ve been there. You’ve just created a business card or pamphlet in Word or Canva. It looks great on screen; the colours are nice, bright, and vibrant.

Then you send it to your printer.

And it comes out dull and lifeless. The vibrant colours that looked so great on your screen are now just a dark shadow of what they were. You fiddle with your settings and try again. Same thing. Or, you send the file to a professional printing company and it comes back just as drab.

Bad news: It’s not your printer being faulty, and it’s not your printing company being a doos. It is actually your file.

 

The Screen vs. Paper Battle

Desktop publishing and presentation programs like MS Word, PowerPoint, and Canva aren’t actually optimised for print. They are designed for digital use, ie. files that will be emailed, shared in a presentation, or posted to social media.

The reason is simple: these programs primarily support screen-based RGB colour.

 

What is RGB? (Colour made from light)

Screens use RGB (Red, Green, Blue). Think of it like a prism or a rainbow; these colours are made by combining different percentages of light to create over 16 million visible colours (and more that can’t be seen with the naked eye). Plus, your screen has a backlight, making everything look luminous and extra bright.

 

What is CMYK? (Colour made from ink)

Printing machines use CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black), also known as Process Colour. All printable colours are made by mixing these four inks. However, there are only around 16,000 discernible CMYK colours; far fewer than the 16 million available on your screen. (By ‘discernible’ I mean colours you can tell apart with the naked eye as some CMYK colours are so similar they look identical.)

 

So, Why the Dull Prints?

If you haven’t figured it out yet:

1. Your design program is ‘speaking’ in RGB (Light).
2. Your printer is ‘speaking’ in CMYK (Ink).

When you choose a bright, light-created RGB colour that doesn’t have a physical ink equivalent, your printer will convert it to the closest CMYK match available. Because ink can’t glow like a backlight, the result is almost always duller.

 

How to Fix Your Print-Colour Problems

There are three main ways to bridge the gap between your screen and your printer:

1. Switch to Pro Software: Use programs that support designing in CMYK from the start. Consider Affinity Designer (free with a Canva account), GIMP (free), or industry standards like CorelDRAW or Adobe Illustrator. Just be prepared for a bit of a learning curve.
2. Hire a Pro Designer: Work with a graphic designer who understands CMYK-first workflows. Be careful because many designers work solely in Pantones or Hex codes, which leads back to the same colour matching issues. (Hint: you can work with me.)
3. The Pantone Route: Design in RGB colours that have specific Pantone matches and print in Pantone inks. As I mentioned in [my previous post], this is a luxury solution because Pantone printing is significantly more expensive.

 

The DIY Swatch Solution

There is another way that involves a bit of legwork but works wonders: Create your own physical colour-matching swatches. Here’s how:

1. Create a page in your design program filled with blocks of the colours you use most.
2. Add the relevant RGB or HEX code next to each block.
3. Print this page using the actual printer (or company) you always use.
4. Compare the print-out to your screen.
5. Cross out the ones that don’t match and keep a swatch book of the ones that do. Only design using those ‘safe’ colours!

Don’t have time for the legwork? I’ve already done the hard part for you. I have a ready-made Canva template featuring a printable PDF of these swatches. It also includes a Canva template link so you can edit the swatches or add your own.

Grab your Canva Print-Colour Swatch Template here!

I hope this solves your print-colour frustrations! Feel free to connect if you need help with your designs or have any other print-related challenges.