Compare the two images below.
Do you notice a difference? The image on the right appears “yellower” than the image on the left, which looks more goldenrod by comparison.
The first Pikachu is from the Pokemon.com Pokédex, while the second is from the Pokemon.co.jp equivalent.
What gives?
Color spaces
If you’re reading this on a computer or phone screen, as most of you are, each pixel on that screen is likely composed of three colors: red, green, and blue. By adjusting the intensity of each color, millions of colors can be seen on your screen. This is the RGB color model.
For color printing, however, a different color model is used. If you’ve ever had a color printer and ran out of ink, you’ll likely know it uses four colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. This is because printers use the CMYK color model (K stands for “key”, if you were curious – I grew up assuming it was the last letter in “black”, instead of B to avoid confusion with “blue”).
I just so happen to have the PSD file for the Pikachu image above, so let’s open it in Affinity and see what comes it says.
Let’s break this part down.
1504 × 1431px is the resolution of the image: 1,504 pixels wide by 1,431 pixels tall
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