Difference between CMYK versus sRGB?

Question

As a photographer, I am finding a color discrepancy between the computer screen and the print. Should I be converting my images to CMYK before editing? What is the difference between it and sRGB?

Answer 1

An image profiled as CMYK has it's color information split into the four standard process colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) for commercial offset printing (or its equivalent).

sRGB and AdobeRGB each have three color channels: red, green, blue and are used for all processes other than printing at a commercial print shop.

You always want to keep the image in one of the three-color profiles (sRGB, AdobeRGB, ProRGB) when printing from an inkjet printer. It will not print correctly as these printers are programmed to accept only three-color profiles. NEVER use CMYK unless you are sending these files to be printed at a commercial printing house for printing on a offset, letterpress or similar processes. These presses are, for the most part, used to create publications such as magazines or newspapers, or singular pages such as posters. That previous advice was, with all due respect, incorrect.

There are a couple reason you are noticing a discrepancy between screen and print. First, your monitor may not be calibrated. Second, you may not be using the correct printer settings. The processes are different for various printer manufacturers, so you may have to either provide a bit more information on how you're printing, or do a few Internet searches to find the correct settings.

Answer 2

These are two different standards of color production.

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (black). CMYK, or 4-color processing, is the standard for print. The idea is that white is the natural state of a sheet of print paper. Cyan, magenta and yellow combine to cover up the white in varying degrees and combinations, producing every possible intermediate color imaginable. The only reason we have "Key", which is a pure black pigment, is so that when you print on a color printer, using black to produce darker shades saves on colored ink. All 4-color printers use the CMYK standard because it produces the best print color.

RGB stands for Red, Green, Blue. This is a standard for light reproduction, like on video screens. The perfectly balanced combination of red, green and blue produces white light. Changing the amount of each light color produces the intermediate colors. The total absence of light produces black.

So the difference is that you start out with a white print paper and use CMYK to produce images by covering up the white, while in light images/video you start out with black or no image and use red, green and blue light to produce the colors of an image all the way to white.

Unfortunately, what you see on the screen seldom has the color or brightness of what you see on print. One way to improve your picture quality is to use color profiles.  ICC (International Color Consortium) profiles are color profiles you can find for most printers and monitors that ensure your image is the best quality and reproduction possible.

Answer 3

Well CYMK is more for print

and RGB is for web

I think RGB - Red, Green, Blue : options are more restricted. RGB controls colors by monitoring only these 3

Answer 4

RGB files tend to be smaller than CMYK so most digital images will originate as RGB.  However, you'll need to convert them to CMYK (easily done in Photoshop) if you are going to make physical prints as the print will be made up of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.  There's a (dying) art of knowing what images on screen will look like when printed and what colours work best in CMYK (oranges look flat, dark blues can drift into purples with too much magenta etc etc).

Essentially there are two things to remember.  Your monitor has a huge great light bulb behind the screen, back lighting the image.  the finished print will obviously not have this, so will not be as bright.  And, printing/developing is not an exact science.  If you really want control of your prints, go back to film and develop them yourself.  now that is a skill.