I have a companion book on my @VictoriaKaer profile with writing tips. This book will cover some basic elements of cover design as well as some dos and don'ts of design. I also have information about requesting from a designer here on Wattpad.
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No, neither of those are some weird code. They are color models and both are important to design.
RGB - is primarily used for electronic systems (i.e computer screens). It is named for the three primary colors Red - Green - Blue. It is an additive color system. It adds the colors together (Red, Blue, Green) to create a wide array of colors. The RGB color model can produce a wide array of vibrant colors
CMYK - is used primarily for print. The letters stand for Cyan - Magenta - Yellow - Key (black). It is a subtractive color system. Paper is white and the way CMYK works is by putting together dots of color to 'subtract' from the white of the page and create an image the eye perceives as more than the four base colors.
Most designers will do their work in an RGB color mode and then convert the final file to CMYK, you can run into issues when converting to CMYK. The colors won't be as vibrant because it's a limiting color model.
I created this cover for an author recently. This is the RGB file.
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This is what happened when I converted the cover to CMYK. I lost all the color and spent an hour attempting to fix the cover so it wasn't black and white.
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The second issue you run into with CMYK is that the file will always print a lot darker than the image you see on your screen so you're better off lightening it several shades.
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Here's another example for you. This cover has more color.
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This is the RGB file
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This is the CMYK file. I lost a lot of the purples but the cover still looks good. I don't usually have a lot of issues converting to CMYK. The Room 629 cover is the first time I've ever run into a major issue when converting. It was a learning experience for sure, I had to figure out how to fix what went wrong.
Something else you should know about when designing is image DPI.
DPI stands for dots per inch. It was coined by printers to indicate how many dots of ink were placed on a print in a distance of an inch. With digital media becoming popular it is used often to indicate image quality. The more dots per inch the higher quality the image and the less likely it will be to pixelate when made larger.
Print DPI is a minimum of 300 dots per inch.
Web resolution is, by contrast, 72 dots per inch
A vast difference in quality. If you submit a 72 DPI image for print it will not come out looking good.
When I design, everything I do is 300 DPI, even the graphics I make for Wattpad. I want to provide the best-looking images possible and when I design, in my mind every customer deserves to receive the best product. It's how I always design. I don't half-ass anything.
