Why do my colors dull and fade when I upload my design to Vistaprint?

Question

I have designed a baby shower invitation in Photoshop Elements 8. The card looks great on my screen. I resized it to fit the dimensions of Vistaprints 6x9 invitations, still the color looked bright and vibrant. I uploaded it to Vistaprint and it looks very dull and flat. The card is bright pink and neon green but in VP it's very pale. When I compare the PS one to the proof of the Vistaprint one the difference is drastic. What can I do to fix this?

Answer 1

It has to do with the color profile assigned to image. When you save your image, does elements ask if you want to embed a particular color profile? What is the default color profile on your system?



Remember that systems often see colors differently - it's best to stick a common color profile to an image - like Adobe RGB(1998) or one of the others. Don't assign color profiles that are specific to the camera model or your computer (like LCD Generic Color Profile).



I hope this offers at least a little bit of assistance.

Answer 2

Color profile may be one of the reasons, but it sounds like you're using colors that are outside what's called the "color gamut" of of the printer. Basically that means that the printer is simply unable to print greens and pinks that are neon intensity, and your proof is showing that to you. You see, when a printer creates a color like green, it has to mix cyan and yellow inks, but when it does that it can never reproduce a color that's brighter and more vibrant than the ink, and the mixing process necessarily results in a darker color!



If bright, neon colors are really what you want, you actually would need to go to a specialty printer that uses special inks designed to be as bright and vibrant as the colors you want. I recommend visiting a professional printer in person to select from their Pantone swatches...even places like Office Depot has print centers where the employees may be able to help you print what you need.

Answer 3

Vistaprint Baby Shower Invitations

Answer 4

From Photoshop Elements, change the color mode to CMYK. Go to Image>Mode>CMYK.

Choose your colors from there. Sometimes it's best to pick another preset invitation from a site like royalixone and just change the text.