Gimp: Improve CMYK images
With the free image editing program Gimp you can easily improve the color, contrast and brightness of CMYK images. In this practical tip we will show you how.
Enhance CMYK images with Gimp
The RGB color space is much larger than CMYK and has bright colors that do not exist in printing. This is why print images are usually created in CMYK mode or converted into this mode. As a result, the colors lose their brilliance. However, the quality of the CMYK images can be improved somewhat.
- Load your image into Gimp and convert it from RGB to CMYK for printing.
- Gimp does not really convert the image to CMYK mode, but separates the colors according to the color space. In the layer window you will therefore see different layers for the basic colors (see screenshot). Here you select the color level that you want to change and increase the contrast using the "Colors -> Brightness / Contrast" menu. This makes the colors stronger.
- Repeat the contrast increase for each required level individually. In our example, these would be the Magenta and Yellow layers.
- CMYK images often do not actually show black as black. With reduced brightness at this level and increased contrast, you can also achieve a deep black in CMYK mode.
In the next practical tip, you will learn how to correct differences in brightness in Gimp.