# RGB, CMYK or Lab colour?



## camcam (Jun 11, 2006)

Hi, I'll be leaving in some digital photos to get printed and at the moment I'm scaling them to 5x7, but I'm just wondering... should they be set to RGB, CMYK or Lab colour? (I'm thinking either CMYK or lab) :???: Probably a very basic question, but it would be great if you could let me know! Thanks for your help!


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## magicmonkey (Jun 11, 2006)

All the online print places I know use RGB but it could vary from lab to lab, give the lab you're using a call...


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## camcam (Jun 11, 2006)

Thanks for that magicmonkey! That's grand.


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## DocFrankenstein (Jun 11, 2006)

http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/color_management.htm
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/


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## camcam (Jun 12, 2006)

Thanks for the links Doc! I'll read through them properly again to try to understand it. I got the photos printed today... I asked bout RGB, CMYK and lab colour. He said CMYK is for 4 colour home printer so best to have them RGB for photolab. But I still wonder if I should have set it to Lab colour :???:
Anyway, they turned out well!  Wonder if the there'd be much difference in colour with lab colour though :hertz:  
Thanks for the replies!


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## ksmattfish (Jul 16, 2006)

camcam said:
			
		

> But I still wonder if I should have set it to Lab colour :???:



The "lab" in "lab color" doesn't refer to your local photo lab, but to the CIE Lab color system introduced in the 70s.  Keep it in RGB mode, and if your lab needs to I'm sure they can change the mode.  Here's a link to an article about lab mode.

http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/12869.html


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## JEazy (Jul 17, 2006)

your going to want to use RGB. CMYK is mainly used for newspaper print, and you most likely will never even have to worry about lab color.


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