Color Mode for Wall Art

[donnalee]

I'm new to Zazzle and print-on demand. I'm considering creating wall art products in addition to other products. Can Zazzle print colors on posters/wall art that are outside of the CMYK gamut? I'd like to be able to use the full range of RGB colors in my wall art. Do other products need to stick to colors in the CMYK gamut to print the colors accurately? Thanks!

Donna

[Lisa-B]

Hi @donnalee 

I passed this along to our Team, as soon as I have a reply I will let you know.

Lisa💮

[Cat]

According to this help file: Creating and Uploading Images to Zazzle – Zazzle Help Center

Suggested Color Profiles

We recommend using an RGB color profile for images; however, we also support CMYK based images.

[idraw]

@donnalee 

from this discussion:
<https://community.zazzle.com/t5/pro-silver-private/customers-with-color-matching-complaints-again/m-...>
Moderator Scott posted…check the color profile that you're attaching to the image. This might be a setting in the image editor itself, or a setting during image export, or both (check the export settings first)…. You can use Adobe RGB or S-RGB and that should be sufficient.

also read my post in this same thread:……When creating, pc monitors display colors differently than macs.. Which leads back to when you save the image, the color profile rides along with it. 
I use my Mac, photoshop, and Adobe1998 for my profile. Sounds old, but works just fine. For many years I was using BruceRGB. but switched probably 12 years ago..they both have the same color gamut…Z uses whatever colors are in the image you have set on the product, but does use their own printer color settings, which I have never had a problem with, nor on CP for the years there, before ‘08. (Cmyk seems to basically flatten/dull the rbg  vibrant colors, esp in illustrator and cmyk.) .…the colors available in the RGB color gamut (what you can see on your screen) are much greater than the colors available in the CMYK gamut (what can be printed)
read more here——

<https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/219861927-Creating-and-Uploading-Images-to-Zazzle>
read more here—

<https://help.zazzle.com/hc/en-us/articles/219861927-Creating-and-Uploading-Images-to-Zazzle> We recommend using an RGB color profile for images; however, we also support CMYK based images

[PenguinPower]

This is a somewhat different question..... I am honestly not sure why Zazzle recommends using RGB... as it will always be converted to CMYK for printing. They may simply feel that their own process of changing the color profiles for each of their printing processes gives better results and takes what can be a technical thing to try to explain off of the table for the general consumer. Of course Illustrator appears to dull down images - if you leave the defaults for printing on, it will only show you in gamut colors that are capable of being printed. Using RGB and previewing for electronic screens will usually give you a preview that isn't entirely achievable... 

To answer the OP - printing will never be able to reproduce the full gamut of colors that you can see with RGB. Only light is able to mix in this manner.. ink is not. If one were to try to print with red, green and blue you'd only get mud... Zazzle and/or it's makers *may* (I don't know) use extended gamut printing on some products though - which adds orange, green and purple inks and is capable, supposedly, of reproducing up to 90% of Pantone's spot colors, which would bring it much closer to what you see with RGB.