designer secrets: what color is the print?

Remember the what color is the dress debate from a few weeks ago? Well, it turns out that I have those kind of nasty debates with myself all the time over color in my projects. Color makes or breaks a project which is why it can be extremely frustrating. I spend hours and hours getting the color of a project just right, only to have it look completely different when printed, or photographed, or viewed on the computer.  Gah!  I've actually bought two online classes just because they had a part in their syllabus called color. Boy was I disappointed to learn in both of those classes that there really isn't a trick to color. You can learn all the tricks in the world, and it will never print exactly how you want it to. The designers suggestion was to do what you can and then let it go. Double gah!

So what can you do? Here are some of the few things that I've learned about color on my own.

1. First, know what files your printer accepts. I don't really understand the complexities of RGB vs CMYK, all I know is that if you save a file that you created in Illustrator (always CMYK) in Photoshop,  it will print neon. If you have something that turns out neon, go back to the document and change it to RGB mode before saving it.
   
2. Don't just pick any color on the color palette. It's tempting I know. But some colors even though they are there, are actually out of gamut and will print weird. Photoshop and Illustrator have a warning box that appears if something is out of gamut. If you are lucky enough to own Pantone Color Swatches, then color accuracy should be easier for you, but if you can't afford them like most of us, it's all a guessing game.
3. It takes time! I would guess that I spend as much time selecting and adjusting colors as I do actually drawing the project. Maybe even more time.
   
4. When uploading projects or photos to the web, know that they can and probably will look different from monitor to monitor and even on the same monitor but in different browsers. Very annoying. I had this problem the other week when I was uploading photos to this blog. Everything looked fine on my monitor in Photoshop, but desaturated and gray on the blog on the same monitor. Turns out I had to change the image mode to sRGB. See the photos of  me at the top and the photos of the Hiltons below for an example. Both images are the same, just saved differently. The images on the left are saved as AdobeRGB and the images on the right are sRGB.  Images for the web need to be saved as sRGB to maintain color accuracy.
   

   5. Calibrate your monitor through your monitor AND through your intel graphics and media control panel (for Windows). Or just own a Mac. I hear those monitors are great with accuracy of color. But if you aren't as lucky, you run into problems like the one below.

-Photo A is the original file that I designed in Illustrator. I changed the colors of this print hundreds of times (I'm not exaggerating) before I even printed it.
-Photo B is a screenshot of how the photographer's photo of the print looked on my monitor. I realized that my monitor was way too saturated. The only way to turn down the saturation of the monitor was through the intel graphics card. I also had to adjust just the yellows and reds on my monitor.  It took lots of going back and forth.
-Photo C is what the photographer's photo of the print looked like on her screen and on mine after I fixed my monitor. It looks much better, but still not like the original file or oddly enough, like the physical print that she was actually photographing. It was confusing to me how the photograph of the print could look so different than the print itself. And very frustrating.
-Photo D is the photographer's photo of the print after *much* tweaking in Photoshop. Now it looks more like the original, but still not exactly the same, sigh. At least it isn't the nasty yellow colors of photos B/C.

A

C

B

D

Moral of the story? Selecting and adjusting colors is a huge part of a designer's process. And it's usually a frustrating, time consuming, and pricey process (especially when you have to reprint items until the colors turn out right--more on that story tomorrow).

Please share with me what you have learned about colors! Do you have any time saving tips? Or good classes to take/articles to read? I still have a long way to go on understanding color in the digital world.