This is the most common question we get after a job is delivered, and the answer is usually that nothing went wrong.
Two different systems
A screen makes colour by emitting light — red, green and blue added together, which is why a screen can look brilliant in a dark room. Print makes colour by absorbing it: each ink subtracts part of the spectrum and what bounces back off the paper is what you see.
The range each can reach is different, and they do not overlap completely. The very bright colours a screen can produce — electric blue, vivid orange, glowing green — sit outside what ink on paper can mix. Converted for print, they land on the nearest reachable colour, which reads as slightly duller.
The material changes the answer too
The same ink behaves differently on different surfaces. A coated card holds ink on the surface and looks sharp and saturated. Uncoated paper absorbs it and reads softer. A domed badge sits under a clear coating that deepens colours slightly. A sign panel laminated for outdoor use shifts again.
Your screen is probably not accurate
Two uncalibrated screens side by side show noticeably different colour, and phones are the worst offenders because most boost saturation deliberately. Never approve colour from a phone.
What to do about it
- Name the colour if it is a crest or corporate colour, and give us a reference. It is the only way to hold it across separate runs.
- Ask for a printed proof on anything colour-critical or any long run.
- Judge colour in daylight, not under office fluorescent light, which pushes everything green.
A small, consistent shift you would only notice with the two side by side is normal and expected. Something further out than that is a fault — bring it back to us.
- colour
- artwork