CMYK images not looking good in Preview...?

When I change my Photoshop image from RGB to CMYK, it shows up really blurry in Preview. It looks fine in Photoshop but in preview it looks awful. (Black turns to grey, no crisp outlines and RGB images look really crisp and colourful in comparison). I have it saved as CMYK as it is an image that will need to be printed, can anyone tell me is this a preview of how it will look when I get it printed? I'm hoping it will look a lot crisper. I don't have a printer on which I can test this, I'm sending it away so I need some advice! Thanks! (PS. my OS is Leopard)

do the colors change like that when you view it in photoshop? what about when you place the image into indesign or illustrator?

cmyk will always look different than rgb on screen, theres just no way around it. thats why Pantone exists. not sure why the image would become blurry tho. are you doing text in photoshop too?

what are you getting the job printed on?

Is it a litho press or digital printing, or a large format inkjet

if it is a large format inkjet printer leave it as RGB, if the CMYK looks good in photoshop then don't worry

by the way are you saving 16 bit cmyk or 24 bit)

The image looks perfect when opened in all the Adobe programs, its just preview that makes it funny looking. So I'm hoping this means Preview isn't the best programme and it will print as it looks in Photoshop......? How can I check if I'm saving 16 bit cmyk or 24 bit? Is that when I go to image, mode, 16 bit channel? if so then I'm saving it as 16 bit (it won't allow me to select 32 bit) Thanks!

it sounds like your file is just fine

it may be that preview is making a mistake with the colour profile - but preview is not a proofing tool - Photoshop is

its also possible to do a "soft proof" in photoshop. there are some steps involved to set up your photoshop color settings. for example, i work at a magazine that prints on newsprint, so i have to reduce the density of blacks, magentas and yellow by up to 15% on any images that i want to use. so on screen, my images can look pretty light and faded, but when printed (because of dot-gain) the image prints fairly normally. i have my settings set so i can "proof colors" to see what it might look like when its printed on newsprint. its not perfect, but it will at least give you a better idea of the final output. you have to set up your color settings to try and match whatever printer you are using.

(color settings is under PHOTOSHOP>COLOR SETTINGS in your menu bar and proof colors is under VIEW>PROOF COLORS in your menu bar)

the photoshop help guide is very useful in this regard. hope this helps.

Thanks for all the help! I mailed the images to my work PC and they look fine, it must be that preview isn't great at showing up the colours ;D