{"course":{"slug":"vector-and-print","title":"Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print","level":"beginner","track":"create"},"lesson":{"slug":"gamut-and-rendering-intents","title":"What happens to a colour the press cannot print","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/gamut-and-rendering-intents","position":30,"of":73,"minutes":8,"answer":"Perceptual compresses the whole gamut smoothly and suits photographs; relative colorimetric with black point compensation keeps in-gamut colours exact and clips the rest, which is what artwork and brand colours need.","keyIdea":"Perceptual compresses the whole gamut smoothly and suits photographs; relative colorimetric with black point compensation keeps in-gamut colours exact and clips the rest, which is what artwork and brand colours need."},"body":{"format":"markdown","text":"## Gamut is a solid, not a triangle\n\nThe familiar horseshoe diagram with triangles drawn on it is a slice. A real gamut is a three-dimensional solid in Lab, and its shape differs by lightness: a press can produce a vivid mid-tone orange it cannot produce as a light tint or a dark shade.\n\nWhere CMYK is smaller than sRGB, reliably:\n\n- **Saturated blues and violets.** RGB blue (0,0,255) has no CMYK equivalent at all. It comes back as a dull purple-navy, and this is the single most common colour disappointment in print.\n- **Saturated greens**, particularly bright emerald and spring green.\n- **Vivid orange and warm red** at high saturation.\n- **Anything fluorescent.** No process ink is fluorescent.\n\nWhere CMYK is *larger* than sRGB, which surprises people: some deep cyans and some rich yellows on coated stock exceed what an sRGB screen can show.\n\n## The four rendering intents\n\nWhen a colour will not fit, the conversion must decide what to do with it. That decision is the **rendering intent**, chosen in the convert dialog.\n\n- **Perceptual.** Compresses the whole gamut smoothly so relationships between colours are preserved. Out-of-gamut colours come in; in-gamut colours also shift slightly to make room. Correct for photographs, where a smooth gradation matters more than any one exact value.\n- **Relative colorimetric.** Leaves in-gamut colours exactly where they are and clips out-of-gamut ones to the nearest reproducible colour. White is mapped to paper white. Correct for artwork, logos and anything with specified brand colours, which is most vector work.\n- **Absolute colorimetric.** Like relative, but does *not* remap white: it simulates the source's paper white, so a proof on bright white stock shows the yellowish cast of the newsprint you are simulating. Correct only for proofing one press on another.\n- **Saturation.** Maximises vividness, ignores accuracy. Intended for business charts. Not for anything that matters.\n\n**Relative colorimetric with black point compensation** is the right default for vector artwork. **Perceptual** is the right default for photographs. Most people use whatever is preset and never learn there was a choice.\n\n## Black point compensation\n\nWithout it, a source black that is darker than the destination's darkest black gets clipped, and every shadow detail near it collapses into one flat tone. Black point compensation scales the whole tonal range so the source black maps onto the destination black, preserving separation in the shadows at the cost of a small overall lightening.\n\nLeave it **on** for relative colorimetric. It is on by default in Adobe applications and in Scribus, and it is one of the few defaults that is correct.\n\n## Seeing the problem before you print\n\n**Soft proofing** shows you the destination's gamut on your screen. Free everywhere:\n\n- **Scribus**: Preferences ▸ Colour Management ▸ *Simulate printer on screen*, plus the *Out of gamut* warning checkbox.\n- **GIMP**: View ▸ Colour Management ▸ *Soft-proofing*, set the profile, and enable *Out of gamut warning* with a chosen marker colour.\n- **Krita**: **Ctrl+Y**.\n- **Photopea**: View ▸ Proof colours.\n- **Illustrator / Photoshop**: View ▸ Proof Setup ▸ Custom, then **Ctrl+Y**; Photoshop adds View ▸ Gamut Warning.\n\nA soft proof on an uncalibrated screen is a rough guide, not a match. It will still tell you truthfully *which* colours are unreachable, because that is a property of the profiles rather than of your monitor.\n\n## What to do when a colour will not fit\n\nIn order of preference:\n\n1. **Choose a different colour**, from a printed CMYK chart, before the design is signed off. Cheapest fix by a wide margin.\n2. **Use a spot ink** for that one colour. Costs a plate; reaches colours process cannot.\n3. **Accept the shift** and tell the client what it will look like, showing a printed sample rather than a screen.\n4. **Change the substrate.** A brighter, whiter, coated stock has a visibly larger gamut than uncoated. Sometimes the paper is the answer.\n\nWhat not to do: push the CMYK values higher in the hope of more saturation. Beyond the press's ink limit you get a wet, unstable sheet and no extra colour, because the ink is already absorbing everything it can absorb.\n\n## The one that catches designers out\n\nRGB blue is the classic, and it is worth seeing rather than reading about. Fill a rectangle with `#0000FF`, soft-proof it against a coated press profile, and look at what comes back: a flat, slightly purple navy, several ΔE away from anything anyone would call blue. Now do the same with `#00A0E9` (a cyan-leaning blue) and it survives almost untouched, because it sits near the cyan primary the press actually has.\n\nThat is the practical lesson of gamut in one experiment. Brand colours chosen near a process primary reproduce well everywhere. Brand colours chosen in the corners of the RGB cube reproduce nowhere, and will need a spot ink for the rest of the company's life."},"check":{"question":"A poster combines a photograph with a flat brand orange specified in CMYK. Converted with perceptual intent, the brand orange comes out slightly different from the same orange on the client's existing stationery. What happened, and what should have been done?","options":[{"text":"Perceptual intent compressed the whole gamut, shifting in-gamut colours too; relative colorimetric would have left the orange untouched.","correct":true},{"text":"The photograph's profile overrode the artwork's, so both elements were converted using the image's embedded space.","correct":false,"tempting":"A document conversion applies the same destination profile to everything; an embedded image profile governs its own source, not the artwork beside it."},{"text":"Perceptual intent clips out-of-gamut colours, and the brand orange was outside the press gamut, so it was moved to the nearest printable value.","correct":false,"tempting":"Describes relative colorimetric. Perceptual compresses rather than clips, which is precisely why in-gamut colours also move."},{"text":"Black point compensation was enabled, which rescales the tonal range and lightens saturated colours along with the shadows.","correct":false,"tempting":"Black point compensation affects the mapping of the darkest tones; it does not move a mid-tone saturated orange perceptibly."}]},"prev":{"slug":"icc-profiles-assign-or-convert","title":"Profiles, and the dialog that decides everything","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/icc-profiles-assign-or-convert"},"next":{"slug":"halftones-and-dot-gain","title":"Why your 20% tint printed at 30%","url":"https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/halftones-and-dot-gain"},"authorship":"Founder and series editor: Dr Mustafa Mun. Written by AI models to a written standard. Exam keys checked blind by a second model: 3,665 of 3,666 agreed. Academic review invited.","review":{"status":"Draft, open for academic review"},"cite":"Addaly (2026) 'What happens to a colour the press cannot print', in Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed. Edited by M. Mun. Addaly. Available at: https://addaly.com/learn/vector-and-print/gamut-and-rendering-intents (Accessed: 13 October 2026).","licence":{"name":"CC BY-NC-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/"},"reader":{"schema":1,"title":"What happens to a colour the press cannot print","courseTitle":"Vectors, Logos and Things That Get Printed","module":{"index":4,"slug":"colour-for-print","title":"Colour that survives the press"},"answer":null,"keyIdea":"Perceptual compresses the whole gamut smoothly and suits photographs; relative colorimetric with black point compensation keeps in-gamut colours exact and clips the rest, which is what artwork and brand colours need.","hero":{"kind":"plate","image":null,"alt":null,"caption":null},"blocks":[{"t":"h2","id":"gamut-is-a-solid-not-a-triangle","runs":[{"text":"Gamut is a solid, not a triangle"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"The familiar horseshoe diagram with triangles drawn on it is a slice. A real gamut is a three-dimensional solid in Lab, and its shape differs by lightness: a press can produce a vivid mid-tone orange it cannot produce as a light tint or a dark shade."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Where CMYK is smaller than sRGB, reliably:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Saturated blues and violets.","b":true},{"text":" RGB blue (0,0,255) has no CMYK equivalent at all. It comes back as a dull purple-navy, and this is the single most common colour disappointment in print."}],[{"text":"Saturated greens","b":true},{"text":", particularly bright emerald and spring green."}],[{"text":"Vivid orange and warm red","b":true},{"text":" at high saturation."}],[{"text":"Anything fluorescent.","b":true},{"text":" No process ink is fluorescent."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Where CMYK is "},{"text":"larger","i":true},{"text":" than sRGB, which surprises people: some deep cyans and some rich yellows on coated stock exceed what an sRGB screen can show."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-four-rendering-intents","runs":[{"text":"The four rendering intents"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"When a colour will not fit, the conversion must decide what to do with it. That decision is the "},{"text":"rendering intent","b":true},{"text":", chosen in the convert dialog."}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Perceptual.","b":true},{"text":" Compresses the whole gamut smoothly so relationships between colours are preserved. Out-of-gamut colours come in; in-gamut colours also shift slightly to make room. Correct for photographs, where a smooth gradation matters more than any one exact value."}],[{"text":"Relative colorimetric.","b":true},{"text":" Leaves in-gamut colours exactly where they are and clips out-of-gamut ones to the nearest reproducible colour. White is mapped to paper white. Correct for artwork, logos and anything with specified brand colours, which is most vector work."}],[{"text":"Absolute colorimetric.","b":true},{"text":" Like relative, but does "},{"text":"not","i":true},{"text":" remap white: it simulates the source’s paper white, so a proof on bright white stock shows the yellowish cast of the newsprint you are simulating. Correct only for proofing one press on another."}],[{"text":"Saturation.","b":true},{"text":" Maximises vividness, ignores accuracy. Intended for business charts. Not for anything that matters."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Relative colorimetric with black point compensation","b":true},{"text":" is the right default for vector artwork. "},{"text":"Perceptual","b":true},{"text":" is the right default for photographs. Most people use whatever is preset and never learn there was a choice."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"black-point-compensation","runs":[{"text":"Black point compensation"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Without it, a source black that is darker than the destination’s darkest black gets clipped, and every shadow detail near it collapses into one flat tone. Black point compensation scales the whole tonal range so the source black maps onto the destination black, preserving separation in the shadows at the cost of a small overall lightening."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Leave it "},{"text":"on","b":true},{"text":" for relative colorimetric. It is on by default in Adobe applications and in Scribus, and it is one of the few defaults that is correct."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"seeing-the-problem-before-you-print","runs":[{"text":"Seeing the problem before you print"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"Soft proofing","b":true},{"text":" shows you the destination’s gamut on your screen. Free everywhere:"}]},{"t":"ul","items":[[{"text":"Scribus","b":true},{"text":": Preferences ▸ Colour Management ▸ "},{"text":"Simulate printer on screen","i":true},{"text":", plus the "},{"text":"Out of gamut","i":true},{"text":" warning checkbox."}],[{"text":"GIMP","b":true},{"text":": View ▸ Colour Management ▸ "},{"text":"Soft-proofing","i":true},{"text":", set the profile, and enable "},{"text":"Out of gamut warning","i":true},{"text":" with a chosen marker colour."}],[{"text":"Krita","b":true},{"text":": "},{"text":"Ctrl+Y","b":true},{"text":"."}],[{"text":"Photopea","b":true},{"text":": View ▸ Proof colours."}],[{"text":"Illustrator / Photoshop","b":true},{"text":": View ▸ Proof Setup ▸ Custom, then "},{"text":"Ctrl+Y","b":true},{"text":"; Photoshop adds View ▸ Gamut Warning."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"A soft proof on an uncalibrated screen is a rough guide, not a match. It will still tell you truthfully "},{"text":"which","i":true},{"text":" colours are unreachable, because that is a property of the profiles rather than of your monitor."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"what-to-do-when-a-colour-will-not-fit","runs":[{"text":"What to do when a colour will not fit"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"In order of preference:"}]},{"t":"ol","start":1,"items":[[{"text":"Choose a different colour","b":true},{"text":", from a printed CMYK chart, before the design is signed off. Cheapest fix by a wide margin."}],[{"text":"Use a spot ink","b":true},{"text":" for that one colour. Costs a plate; reaches colours process cannot."}],[{"text":"Accept the shift","b":true},{"text":" and tell the client what it will look like, showing a printed sample rather than a screen."}],[{"text":"Change the substrate.","b":true},{"text":" A brighter, whiter, coated stock has a visibly larger gamut than uncoated. Sometimes the paper is the answer."}]]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"What not to do: push the CMYK values higher in the hope of more saturation. Beyond the press’s ink limit you get a wet, unstable sheet and no extra colour, because the ink is already absorbing everything it can absorb."}]},{"t":"h2","id":"the-one-that-catches-designers-out","runs":[{"text":"The one that catches designers out"}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"RGB blue is the classic, and it is worth seeing rather than reading about. Fill a rectangle with "},{"text":"#0000FF","code":true},{"text":", soft-proof it against a coated press profile, and look at what comes back: a flat, slightly purple navy, several ΔE away from anything anyone would call blue. Now do the same with "},{"text":"#00A0E9","code":true},{"text":" (a cyan-leaning blue) and it survives almost untouched, because it sits near the cyan primary the press actually has."}]},{"t":"p","runs":[{"text":"That is the practical lesson of gamut in one experiment. Brand colours chosen near a process primary reproduce well everywhere. Brand colours chosen in the corners of the RGB cube reproduce nowhere, and will need a spot ink for the rest of the company’s life."}]}],"check":{"question":[{"text":"A poster combines a photograph with a flat brand orange specified in CMYK. Converted with perceptual intent, the brand orange comes out slightly different from the same orange on the client’s existing stationery. What happened, and what should have been done?"}],"options":[{"text":[{"text":"Perceptual intent compressed the whole gamut, shifting in-gamut colours too; relative colorimetric would have left the orange untouched."}],"correct":true,"tempting":null},{"text":[{"text":"The photograph’s profile overrode the artwork’s, so both elements were converted using the image’s embedded space."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"A document conversion applies the same destination profile to everything; an embedded image profile governs its own source, not the artwork beside it."}]},{"text":[{"text":"Perceptual intent clips out-of-gamut colours, and the brand orange was outside the press gamut, so it was moved to the nearest printable value."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Describes relative colorimetric. Perceptual compresses rather than clips, which is precisely why in-gamut colours also move."}]},{"text":[{"text":"Black point compensation was enabled, which rescales the tonal range and lightens saturated colours along with the shadows."}],"correct":false,"tempting":[{"text":"Black point compensation affects the mapping of the darkest tones; it does not move a mid-tone saturated orange perceptibly."}]}],"order":[1,0,2,3],"why":null},"prev":{"slug":"icc-profiles-assign-or-convert","title":"Profiles, and the dialog that decides everything","minutes":9},"next":{"slug":"halftones-and-dot-gain","title":"Why your 20% tint printed at 30%","minutes":9}}}