Colorspace DeviceRGB Illustrator

Brief Description

Device RGB - the default color space for device contexts, consists of the arbitrary set of colors (Red, Green, Blue) for the specified output device. Logical color values in this space are given as three 8-bit color values (in a 32-bit value) and are sent to the device driver without transformation.

RGB colors are called additive colors because you create white by adding R, G, and B together—that is, all light is reflected back to the eye. Additive colors are used for lighting, television, and computer monitors. Your monitor, for example, creates color by emitting light through red, green, and blue phosphors.

What your issue is

(You are welcome to edit this)

In the case of DeviceRGB you have selected what is called an "Additive" color space and like a computer monitor it has a broad spectrum of valid colors. On the other hand the color printing process uses a "Subtractive" color space and it has a far more restrictive spectrum of valid colors. This means that your RGB colored items may very likely have colors that simply can not be reproduced by a printing press and therefore the final printed piece may not match very closely with what you see on screen.

How to fix this issue

(You are welcome to edit this)

By converting your images and other artwork elements into CMYK color space then you will be able preview the colors on your monitor more closely to how they will look when printed. This will prevent the situation where you order printed goods based on RGB and are not happy with the final product that you will receive in CMYK.

More details

Because each device has its own color space, it can reproduce colors only in its gamut. When an image moves from one device to another, image colors may change because each device interprets the RGB or CMYK values according to its own color space. For example, it is impossible for all the colors viewed on a monitor to be identically matched in a print from a desktop printer. A printer operates in a CMYK color space, and a monitor operates in an RGB color space. Their gamuts are different. Some colors produced by inks cannot be displayed on a monitor, and some colors that can be displayed on a monitor cannot be reproduced using inks on paper.

Convert color space of images to CMYK

1.Select an image.

2.Choose Edit > Edit Colors > Convert To CMYK.

References:

Color Spaces

RGB

Convert grayscale images to RGB or CMYK

About colors in digital graphics