In this article we'll review the various color modes you can select in the Sawgrass Print Utility to give you the best color output for your project.
Before moving to the Color Management Tab to choose your color mode, start by making sure that your print settings are correct for the product and paper you will be using. All of these settings can impact color, so choose these first before moving to the Color Management tab.
Once you are done with your general print settings and click on the Color Management Tab, you will choose your Color Mode.
The correct color mode for any given project will change based on what is most important in the final results:
- Photographic Mode is going to product pressed results that are closet to the colors you are seeing on the screen.
- Vibrant Mode has saturation and brightness adjusted to give you a finished product that is very bold and rich. If you used Vivid Mode in our previous print management tool, this will give you the same effect.
- Grayscale Mode will take a color image and remove the color, changing it to black and white. When Grayscale is selected, sliders will appear that allow you to adjust the final results. Make sure to choose Apply to Image to apply the changes and see them in the preview.
- Custom Mode allows you to adjust the color output by moving sliders related to both the colors and aspects of the color.
There are several components that can be adjusted when doing a custom color configuration:
- Color Tone -- sliders are available so that you can emphasize certain color tones over others. If your print is too red or magenta, you'd move those sliders closer to cyan and green. Just remember that if you emphasize more of one color, for instance blue, you are taking away from the other end of the slider, in this case yellow.
- Brightness -- adjusting brightness impacts how much light is reflected onto the design allowing you to lighten or darken the image.
- Hue -- changing this adjusts the colors in the design. With this slider you are adjusting the colors in relation to their color family. Moving the slider to the right would change a red to more of a burgundy or maroon while moving it to the lighter side would be closer to a coral.
- Saturation -- This changes how vivid colors appear. High saturation results in more intense colors while low saturation results in a more mooted result.
- Contrast -- Adjusts the relationship between blacks and whites in the design. A strong contrast results in blacks being as black as they can be and whites being as white as they can be. Increased contrast creates a stark difference in color values while increasing it creates a more muted palette.
When making adjustments, always remember to apply the changes to the design.
Once you have adjusted your sliders and found settings that provide the results you desire, you can save these setting as a custom profile to use in the future. You will just click the button to save, and then give the new profile a name.
For future projects, you can go to the custom panel and select and load the profile you created to give you the desired results.
Those are the basics of using the Color Management tab. If you are still having issues with your color results, please open a ticket with our Care Team.