RGB CYMK conversion disaster

[DanaLynn]

I completed a book cover, sent it to the publisher. The told me to convert it to cymk from rgb. Which I did. Colors were horrible so I did adjustments. INSIDE Photoshop the colors are now beautiful but after saving and opening the saved file to view on the computer, the colors are harsh, dark and the image is horrible.

Any ideas about what I've done wrong or what may be going on?

I'm on a deadline and need to get this resolved as soon as possible.

Thanks!

[Tips]

This often happens ... best policy is to BEGIN in the color space required for the jog.

Is this photographic -- did you start with a real photo?

Now, since you're done already -- what is the output file format?

Do the colors look better when output to PDF?

Colors should be adjustable, and then 'save' fairly reliably. However, there are color ranges that simply aren't going to revive or survive the RGB to CMYK conversion. You may have to re-work parts of the art.

[DanaLynn]

I checked the final image in a photoshop file (for the publisher) as well as a jpeg (for the writer). Both were extremely ugly!

There are many photographic and texture images in the cover.

I was afraid that I would have to start over. Looks like there may be a long night ahead.

Thanks for your advise.

[tlpe548b]

Yes the best advice is to start everything at the correct, color mode, dpi, and size!

That aside at this point make sure you do your corrections and when you save your image you do it at the highest settings, jpegs have several layers of quality.

Another note is always print things when you are worried about colors, monitors display things very differently then the actual colors. Printed/hard copy version will give you the correct idea of what your art looks like, monitors will not .