Help! RGB to CMYK conversion? [solved]

[Chita]

Hi there! I've been meaning to apply to a contest and I'm suposed to send a copy of the pieces in both RGB and CMYK, the thing is that after using all the options of an online converter all the CMYK versions look extremely dull and dark. I have CSP and it has an option to see a preview of how the piece would look in CMYK and it has nothing to do with the online conersion result.
I need some help, so here goes my question: how do you transform pieces in CMYK without changing so much the values? Do you know any other ways to do it?
Here are the examples (original,CMYKconverter,CMYKpreview)

[mg78]

i could be very wrong BUT the image cmyk u (and i) re watching is on a screen RGB... so should not be truly correct.

[joannekwan]

cmyk is supposed to look dull on digital rgb monitors! Don't worry about it!
Since physical ink makes color differently, programs have to do a bit of math to approximate rgb numbers into cmyk values, thus cmyk file previews show up dull compared to their rgb counterparts.

[Chita]

@joannekwan I know it's suposed to look dull but I was surprised to see how dark the images had turned. Thankfully I just found a less agressive converter and I think I'm just gonna go with it. Thanks for the help!

[joannekwan]

Yeah digital to physical is so finicky! Even with approximated previews, it's generally advised to do a test print and then alter the file accordingly to how you want it. I guess you can't really do that though for the contest, so I'm glad you found a converter that makes it look better!

[thecrystalrook]

Don't worry about it too much. CMYK is 100% going to look off once you view it outside of something like clip studio or photoshop. CMYK is intended for printing since it matches the colors used by the ink cartridges of your printer (cyan, magenta, yellow, black). It generally results in darker colors since mixing all colors produces black. Your monitor is using RGB (reg, green, blue). This produces lighter colors since mixing all colors produces white. We use CMYK mode in our art programs so we can see what something will look like when it prints. But you have to view it in photoshop or csp to see it. Other programs will not be smart enough to handle this - case in point. If you pass it off to a browser for ex, it doesn't really care about this and just assumes its RGB and renders it weird.

EDIT: If you have access to photoshop, it does a very good job of converting between color profiles.You can do it under edit-> convert to profile. Also, don't save your CMYK image as PNG. Use a jpeg at max quality. PNG is intended for RGB.

EDIT 2: Can you link me to that converter? I just had a hunch,

[Chita]

Thanks for the info! I've seen many tutoriales and tips of doing it on Photoshop but I don't have it :''D.
And sure! I used this one: https://www.rgb2cmyk.org/es.html

[thecrystalrook]

Yea this converter doesn't look great. Since you dont have photoshop, I would say try a bunch of different ones, or ask someone you know who has photoshop to do it for you. The CMYK image should actually look brighter in the browser. I think this converter is doing something weird.