Imagine that you spent hours creating your design, but after it got printed on a t-shirt,
the colors were completely different from how they appeared on the screen.
How did this happen and how do you fix this?
You’ll find out in today's video about color correcting for print.
Hey, it’s Wes from Printful.
There aren't many things our DTG process can't achieve!
However, when choosing the colors for your artwork, it’s important to note that they
may look different printed on a real product than the colors you see on your computer screen.
In the next few minutes, you’ll learn why it's important to color correct your designs,
how to order color swatches, and how to color correct your designs according to the swatches.
If you’re new to this channel, subscribe and check out our videos that will help you
get started with your own print-on-demand business.
Let’s begin.
Why is color correcting important?
If you're running an online store you know the value of the first impression more than
anyone.
When a person buys a product from your store for the first time, you want to meet their
expectations and make them part of your brand community.
Those expectations are met if the customer receives a product similar to the one they
see on screen.
As you saw at the start of the video, the colors in our original design did not look
well on a printed product.
So what causes this difference?
The human eye can distinguish up to 10 million shades of color, and everyone perceives each
color a little differently.
You might remember a particular post about a dress going viral a few years ago, where
some people saw it as white and gold, while others—black and blue.
Our computer monitors, on the other hand, can display more than 16 million colors, but
not all monitors reproduce colors the same way.
Some show a warmer image due to the dominance of yellow color, while others can show a cooler
image that has more blue in it.
Then the DTG printing process comes in, where more factors can impact color representation
on a printed product, like fabric material and garment color, presence of a white underbase,
and color spaces in which designs are created.
Because of this, we can’t guarantee a 100% color accuracy.
However, there are ways you can make sure the colors on the screen are as close as possible
to what your customers get.
Here’s how.
Let’s start with your monitor.
If you work with graphic design, video, or photography it's best to calibrate your monitors
to show the most accurate representation of your work.
This can be achieved with tools that measure the color response of your monitors and create
a specific color profile for your system to show the correct colors.
For example our video team uses Datacolor Spyder 5 calibration device, which helps us
achieve better results when we’re color grading our videos.
When your monitor is all set up, it's time to create some designs.
The two most popular color spaces are RGB and CMYK.
RGB, which stands for Red, Green, and Blue, has a wider gamut than CMYK, meaning that
is can express a wider range of colors.
Print files that are made in RGB color space can be saved in PNG format, which allows you
to have transparent backgrounds.
CMYK, which stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, is the color space used when printing,
but print files with this color space cannot be exported as PNG files.
Our printers accept both PNG and JPEG files and then convert them from RGB to CMYK for
printing purposes.
If the design was created within the RGB color space with colors that are outside of the
CMYK color gamut this conversion might affect your colors.
That's why we suggest you design your file within the CMYK color space, but convert the
file to RGB before saving.
For best possible accuracy, convert the file to sRGB color profile.
This way your colors will stay within the gamut.
To help you understand how colors look on screen versus printed, we offer color swatches.
They're important because you can have a physical reference of how RGB colors are reproduced
in print.
This way you can create designs where printed and on-screen colors are closely matched.
We offer two different types of color swatches for DTG: ones that are printed on white garments,
and ones that are printed on colorful garments with using a white under base.
You can also create your own color swatches to test specific colors you want to use in
your designs.
Let's take a look at where you can order color swatches on Printful.
How to order color swatches?
Once you log in to your Printful account, in the Printful Dashboard click on New Order.
It’s located in the top right corner.
A new window will open where you’ll need to select a store if you have more than one.
You’ll then have two order options.
You'll find color swatches in the sample order section, which also gives you a 20% discount.
Under sample order click on “Create your order.”
Next, you’ll be taken to a new page where you can either choose a specific product for
a sample order by clicking on “Add product”, or you can use the quick links at the bottom
of the page for products that you can sample color swatches for, like t-shirts, mugs, leggings,
and others.
You can see that there are two options for t-shirts, that’s because the colors reproduce
differently on black and white garments.
We recommend ordering both if you can.
I want to improve the colors in my design when it’s printed on a color t-shirt.
Let’s click on the black t-shirt quick link.
A new window will open up, where a black Unisex Premium T-Shirt has been added for you automatically
with a color swatch print file already centered and placed within the safe print area.
In this window you can select the size and color of the t-shirt, as well as check which
variants of this product are available for fulfillment in our USA and Europe locations.
You should order color swatches only for products that have a 12x16 print area.
That's all men's shirts starting from size S, or women's shirts from XL.
RGB values will be too difficult to read on anything smaller.
If you want to see how the colors come out on a white shirt, press on a white t-shirt
quick link instead.
It will contain a color swatch without an underbase, since white underbase isn't put
on white garments.
You can also print color swatches on other DTG products.
In the editing window click Back to Browse and select a different product.
You can order color swatches for a selection of other product categories we offer—just
check the quick links available at the bottom of the page.
For embroidery, we have a specially created embroidery sample you can order to check out
the embroidery area, and how our stitches, embroidery methods, and thread colors look.
To order it, click on Add product, select Hats, choose all embroidered hats, scroll
down until you see the embroidery sample.
Click on it, then press continue.
Once you've chosen all the swatches you want to order , continue through the order process
as usual.
How to color correct your designs.
I got my color swatch with a white underbase printed on a black shirt.
As you can see, each color has its RGB value, which I can input in Photoshop.
Unless you ordered a custom swatch based on the colors you plan to use in your designs,
we recommend using for your designs the color palette from the colors in the standard swatch
sample.
For this example, we already have a print file with a design placed on a transparent
background.
When we printed our design without doing color correction, the actual design did not turn
out as vibrant as it appears on screen.
Some parts like the shadow of the moon lost contrast because the colors ended up being
too close in tone.
So now I'll show you how to color correct based on our swatches.
I’ll open up the original print file and create a new layer where our new colors are
going to be placed.
Next, you need to activate your color panel where you’ll insert RGB values for the new
colors.
To do that, select Window at the very top and choose Color.
This will add a color panel to your workspace.
Currently, we have the Hue Cube, to change this panel click here and select “RGB Sliders.”
Here you can insert the RGB values from the color swatch.
We’ll also use the paint bucket tool to apply new colors to our design.
Pay attention to the panel that will become available once you select this tool.
You want to make sure that the box next to All Layers is checked.
Otherwise, you’ll be filling the entire layer with a single color.
The same applies to the box next to Contiguous.
When this box is checked it allows you to replace the color within a single element.
If it’s left unchecked then you’ll apply color correction to the pixels of the same
color in the entire design.
The next steps are easy, just select the color from the color swatch that best matches your
idea for the design, insert the values in the RGB color panel and, with the paint bucket
tool selected, click on the color that needs to be changed.
It might take some time until you find the colors that you like the most.
Here you can see the corrected result.
It matches the original a lot better and the colors are more vibrant and stand out.
On our screens, the colors may seem too bright, but it’s important to remember that these
colors are based on the RGB values from a printed color swatch.
If you’re having difficulties with correcting the color of your design, make sure to reach
out to our Graphic Design Services team, who’ll be happy to help you out!
We always introduce new content with the idea that it'll help our audience achieve new heights
in their business.
Leave a like to show support for our video and let us know how often you color correct
your designs.