How to Improve Print Colours from Silhouette Studio
If you’ve ever exported a design from Silhouette Studio for printing your papers, stickers, and ephemera, you may have noticed that the colours look duller or not as vibrant as what you see on your screen. This can be really frustrating when you want your projects to pop with bright, true-to-life colours.
The good news? There’s a simple way to fix this directly in Silhouette Studio using the Image Effects Tool before exporting your file.
Why Print Colours Look Dull from Silhouette Studio
Silhouette Studio is an amazing design and cutting programme, but it doesn’t always handle colour exports perfectly. The software tends to mute colours slightly when saving as PNGs or PDFs, which makes your printed projects look less vibrant. You may have noticed:
*Dull or muted colours
* Slightly different shades than expected
*Inconsistent results between your screen and printout
Luckily with one quick adjustment you can compensate for this issue so that your final prints match your design more closely.
The Fix: Use the Image Effects Tool
Silhouette Studio has a built-in Image Effects Tool, found on the right-hand sidebar. It offers several colour correction options. For this fix we’ll focus on three key settings: Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation.
Here’s how to do it step by step:
- Open your JPEG
2. Resize: Resize your image to fit the image board.
3. Open the Image Effects Tool: It’s in the menu on the right
4. Click on the icon that looks like a little sun.
5. Adjust the Settings:
- Reduce the Brightness (e.g., -7)
- Increase the Contrast (e.g., +18)
- Increase the Saturation (e.g., +18)
6. Preview and Export: Export your design as usual (PNG or PDF).
7. Compare the colour-corrected version to the default: Your prints will look much closer to what you see on screen.
Fine-Tuning for Your Design
There’s no one-size-fits-all setting. Depending on your project and colour palette you may need to tweak the adjustments:
If your print still looks a little dull, try bumping up the Saturation even more (e.g. +26).
Remember your design may look overly corrected inside Silhouette Studio, but that’s because you’re compensating for how the software exports colours.
Test export a couple of variations to see which one looks closest to your original design.
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The Rosie’s team x