CMYK vs RGB — Why It Matters for Plastic Card Printing

What RGB actually is

RGB stands for Red, Green, Blue. It is an additive colour model — screens mix light to create colours, and combining all three at full intensity gives you white. It has a much wider colour gamut than print, meaning it can represent colours that physically cannot be reproduced with ink on a substrate.

What CMYK actually is

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key (Black). It is a subtractive model — ink absorbs light rather than emitting it. Mixing all four inks produces a dark brown-black in theory; that is why a separate black (K) ink exists for clean, dense text and solid dark areas.

Plastic card printers — whether offset litho or digital — print in CMYK. Your artwork needs to be in this mode before it goes on press.

What goes wrong with RGB files

• Colours shift on output, especially saturated blues, greens, and oranges
• Brand colours can drift significantly. A Pantone-matched corporate blue can look purple or grey

How to convert correctly

Adobe Illustrator or InDesign: go to Edit > Colour Settings, set your working CMYK profile (usually ISO Coated v2 or FOGRA39 for European print), then convert your document colour mode to CMYK.

Photoshop: Image > Mode > CMYK Colour. Do this before you start laying out artwork, not at the end — converting after the fact changes how every colour looks on screen.

Canva and similar browser tools: most do not give you true CMYK control. Export as a high-resolution PDF and check with your printer whether their workflow handles the conversion, or use a proper design tool.

Spot colours and Pantone

We print in CMYK not spot or Pantone colours. It is not possible to accurately match to Pantone colours. If brand colour accuracy is critical, add a postal proof to your order.