Clients often refer us to their website for all the images. The reason printers cannot use them are because of two reasons: (1) resolution and (2) color mode. Unlike a monitor which displays images clearly in RGB at 72dpi (dots per inch), a offset printer requires the images to be in CMYK with a minimum resolution of 300dpi. Why? Because in printing environments, the “dots” used to render images are much smaller and hence require more dots per inch to create clarity. Likewise, full color images are created with complex interactions between 4 colors - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK (CMYK).
As for the color spaces, RGB is called an additive color space - the combination on the three lights of Red, Green, and Blue yields white. On the contrary, CMYK is called a substractive color space - the removal of the four inks - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black - yields white. Since the monitor radiates varying percentages of the Red, Green, and Blue lights, more vibrant colors could be achieved. In printed materials however, the colors we see are the lights being reflected off the surface of the medium, hence the vibrancy is less than what you see on the monitor. This explains why the bright red, green and blue colors are not well represented on paper.
Confused? Don’t worry, that’s what we’re here for -- to eliminate your headaches. Contact us and we’ll be glad to take care of your graphic needs, whether it is for the web or print.
