How are printers and publishers able to print book covers in neon? This House of Night book cover, for example, has the effect of neon color, but when I try to do it with CMYK they don’t look vivid.
My problem is the following: An illustrator made a beautiful cover for me in neon, but when we converted the cover from RGB to CMYK, what was neon became matte. And printers only accept files with CMYK colors.
The Illustrator even bought a Pantone palette to try to find a color closer to the neon used on the cover, but it didn’t work. How do publishers do it? Is there any trick, effect, anything that can be done to get the book cover printed in neon colors?
I put below an example of the neon RGB color that was used on my cover and the attempts in CMYK, I also added the colors of the cover from the House of Night book.
Updating the post:
Rafael, I can’t post the entire cover because the book hasn’t been released yet, but I can post part of the cover. I posted both versions, one with RGB and the other with CMYK. I don’t have the file in psd or ai, because when the illustrator created the cover she only sent me the cover in image format. I don’t know if this is the file you asked for.
Answer
Simply they do not print with CMYK, instead they use spot colors.
Spot colors are pre mixed inks and require a printer to print with one more ink. Its a bit like going to a paint shop and ask for a custom color. You can get quite the range of things from neon, to metallic or even transparent varnish (that creates a shiny spot on top where its applied)
There is lot to printing beyond CMYK. You can go even further and have a foil pressed on top and surface embossed if you wish. But offcourse cost of setting all this up is for you to pay. CMYK is the cheap option.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Nina B , Answer Author : joojaa