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AreYouAMac · February 2nd, 2009

OK,

So I made the design, everything is on the same layer & the colors are spot colored. If that helps to fix my problem.

So the colors show up nicely, red, yellow, blue, green IN Illustrator.

However, when i save it (.eps) and open it up in Preview, the colors look dull

It wont show its true colors. The black looks gray, red looks duller, and so does every color. But in Illustrator the colors show up exactly the way it should. black is black, red is red, etc.

Am I layering something wrong? Sometimes I get this sometimes I don't.

Or... I make a design and it shows up perfectly in Preview after saving it. Then if I copy the design into a new artboard in Illustrator and save it, the EXACT design also has duller colors. black looks gray, red is dull, etc.

What am I doing wrong? And wouldn't this affect the colors in the printed shirt?

PositiveDave · February 3rd, 2009

It's the colour settings that you're using, can you post the settings here?

Katie785 · February 3rd, 2009

likely the color settings - try setting to RGB color.

brianmot · February 3rd, 2009

if you're screen printing, dont worry what the colors look like on your monitor. You will be printing the film for all your colors in black anyways.

if you have a swatch that is 100% K and 0% CMY, it will appear as a dark gray on your monitor. dont worry, it will print black.

as for your reds and greens... it all depends on your color settings. You might want to try matching your colors to pantones, you will have a more consistant output. good luck.

AreYouAMac · February 3rd, 2009

Here is a picture of the designs.

The left image is the original design. The right image is a "copy & paste" of the original design to a new artboard.

As you can see, the colors on the left side is more in depth, darker. The one on the right is more dullish. the black looks gray.

The stroke line color on both designs differ too. why is this when I just only copy & pasted it. Shouldn't the stroke color be the same?

The swatch colors, which are shown on the bottom are both the same for both original & copied design.

So why does the colors still differ?

Is there anyway that I can prevent this?

brianmot · February 3rd, 2009

Im not sure what you're doing but you can clearly see that the blacks are not the same.... one is 100% C,M,Y,K while the other is just 80% K.

are you sure both your documents are in the same color mode? Illustrator can work in rgb or cmyk.

miktoxic · February 3rd, 2009

exactly. by the way, is that 'racer x' from speed racer?

cycocyco · February 3rd, 2009

What format is the one you are looking at in Preview? Have you compressed the image to a jpg or some other similar format?

prometheus · February 3rd, 2009

If you look at the outline of the design compared to the fill, you see that there are 2 diff colors there. Check the values of both. In the long run it should affect the output. Most of what you are seeing is how different programs handle color. As mentioned before try setting your color to RGB.

cycocyco · February 3rd, 2009

Setting the color to RGB doesn't make sense, especially if this is going to print.

My guess is that in fact it's already set to RGB and he's using CMYK color values inside the file, and Illustrator doesn't like that much and will reset the values, seemingly at will.

AreYouAMac · February 3rd, 2009

OK.

So everyone mentioned, the color setting SHOULD HAVE BEEN SET TO RGB INSTEAD OF CMYK.

The color settings I USED WERE CMYK for all color swatches that I made. I chose CMYK as I thought this would give me the exact colors that I want when they print the shirts.

So every time I would copy and paste the design, the colors would ALWAYS change.

When I set the color swatches to RGB instead of CMYK, copying and pasting the designs DID NOT change the colors. So I guess it were the color settings.

Is RGB really more consistent with colors then CMYK? And do printers prefer CMYK over RGB or it does not matter? If so, this would be a problem for me. Or will the color swatches (set to RGB) help to not change the colors?

Thanks for the help all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by miktoxic


	exactly. by the way, is that 'racer x' from speed racer?

Hmm, never seen that. Just googled it... no it isn't racer x. Thanks for heads up though.

cycocyco · February 3rd, 2009

I guess I will rephrase:

RGB is on-screen color, CMYK is print color. Setting Illustrator to RGB isn't your solution. What IS the solution is not using CMYK color within an RGB document. So, if the document is RGB, don't use the CMYK panel in the color options. You can test it: set a CMYK value on an object, de-select the object and then go back and check the values again and they will have changed. This is only if the document is set to RGB.

brianmot · February 3rd, 2009

cycocyco has the right idea.

Here is a TIP i use when doing a design in illustrator with a small number of colors. You wont find me using a black by double clicking 'fill' box in my tool bar and dragging the color picker down to the bottom left corner. That is not an effective way to get a black. What i do is open my 'Swatch' window (WINDOW>SWATCH) and create the accurate CMYK color i want and use it when needed. Ill create maybe 4-6 colors and only use those. i hope this makes sense.

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