If you’re a newbie to printing, like I am, it was quite a shock when going from screen to print. When printing, color always come out darker than anticipated.

When I printed my magazine, what was a bright, bold graphic became a darker, muddier image. Details were blurred, and some color swatches changed altogether. Greens became yellow, blues became orange. Streaks appeared in the ink, obscuring the images. Off-colored boxes appeared around graphics, and nothing seemed to make them go away – while I was lucky to have escaped that, my classmates weren’t. Drop shadow effects were obscured, and gradient feather effects cut off sharply, instead of fading nicely into the background.

As we were new to printing, my classmates and I panicked. This was not what we expected, and our visions for our magazines were ruined.

However, not all was lost.

Our biggest issue was that our print drivers were incorrect and incompatible with the printer we were using, causing streaks and blurry images. IT to the rescue! A guy from IT visited our classroom and individually changed our print drivers, saving us from a lot of headaches.

But overall, we just had to accept that some of the colors we envisioned were not going to turn out the same once printed, and that’s ok! For one, it is simple to edit them digitally, but for minor color corrections, it’s not always a big deal.

In the end, everyone’s final products turned out beautifully. Cut, trimmed, and stapled, we now have a wonderful example of our skills to display on our portfolio!