Uploaded a piece with wrong color settings, disaster ensued

I spent about 4 hours on a digital painting of a sunset over the Grand Canyon last Sunday, only to realize I had the canvas set to RGB instead of CMYK before posting it to a print site. The preview looked fine on my monitor but the test print came out way too dark and muddy, totally losing the warm glow I worked for. Has anyone else been burned by color space mismatches, and do you have a reliable workflow for catching it early?

2 comments

2 Comments

hannahk1922d ago

Oh man, I feel your pain. I did basically the exact same thing last month with a portrait of my dog - spent ages getting the fur tones just right, and the test print came out looking like a muddy potato with eyes. Now I have a little sticky note on my monitor that just says "CMYK YOU FOOL" in big red letters. Honestly, I think Adobe could make this way less painful if they just flashed a warning or something before you start painting.

aaronclark22d ago

Blame Adobe? C'mon, isn't RGB vs CMYK like day 1 stuff?