Does your Flipbook not look as you intended? Do the colors not match your PDF source? There are a number of factors that can alter the appearance of your Flipbook in relation to your PDF source, but fear not; there are ways you can ensure that what you see in your Flipbook matches what you created in your PDF.

Printed material is static, and often, printed in a large batch on the same equipment, using the same ink, etc. As such, you control the end result directly, and the way that it is experienced by the end user. With digital media, however, so many variables play in to how the content is experienced by the end user.

In short, there is a long list of factors that can impact how your Flipbook is perceived by your end-user, and how it can differ from the PDF you've built it from.

Let's take a look at how you can minimize the chances of misaligned colors between your source PDF and your Flipbook:

Two of the most common color spaces when exporting PDFs are RGB and CMYK.

Computer screens use red, green, and blue light to display colors in images, text, and designs—hence, RGB. This is because each pixel contains three sub-pixels: red, green, and blue. These sub-pixels light up at varying intensities to create the final color you see on a black screen.

Unlike RGB, which uses additive colors, CMYK uses subtractive colors.

In CMYK, adding more color makes the result darker, not lighter. This is because CMYK colors absorb light—more ink means less light. Mixing cyan, magenta, and yellow creates a deep brown, but adding black (the key color) completes the subtraction, resulting in a true black.

When you upload your PDF to iPaper, the pages of your PDF are converted into JPEG image files, which create the 'background' or framework of your Flipbook.

We convert from PDF to JPEG because the former can have multiple layers, whereas the latter, an image, is flat. In this case, a flat image creates the perfect foundation onto which you can build your Flipbook with additional enrichments.

The JPEG format compresses images to reduce file size while preserving as much visual quality as possible. First, the image is converted from RGB to YCbCr, (Y = luminance or brightness, Cb = blue-difference chroma, Cr = red-difference chroma). This is because the human eye is more sensitive to brightness than color, allowing the JPEG format to retain more detail where it matters most.

In short, JPEG reduces file size by efficiently removing less important details while keeping the image visually close to the original.

Your Flipbook visitors will all browse from a range of different devices, such as desktop computers, tablets and mobiles, and do so from a range of manufacturers.

Each device uses different hardware components to display colors. Factors such as screen type, graphics card, and color calibration affect how colors appear on each device.

The example below highlights how the same color is presented differently across devices:
​

Color differences arise due to varying hardware components, color profiles, user settings, lighting conditions, and the aging of devices, all of which impact how colors are displayed.

Most browsers read the ICC profile in an image and adjust colors to match your monitor’s color space. However, if the ICC profile from a JPEG is removed, during compression, for example, to reduce file size, the browser defaults to your monitor’s color space without adapting the image data. This can lead to distorted saturation, contrast, and colors.

Thankfully, this only impacts a small percentage of monitors, such as professional-grade display monitors with a wide gamut. Mobile device screens, laptop screens, and the vast majority of consumer-grade screens are not affected as their color space is limited to what colors they can present.

Software, such as color-shifting tools like f.lux or SunsetScreen, naturally impact how colors are presented on a device — exactly as intended!
​

By their nature, these applications change the default color hue of a display to mitigate blue light exposure, or to suit low-light environments. This means that some colors in your Flipbook might not present as intended.

However, most users using this type of software are aware of this, and can expect a level of color interference.

Lastly, much like the above software which can account, and correct for ambient light levels at the browser's location, ambient lighting in general influences how we perceive color.

For example, viewing a Flipbook outside on a sunny day might render parts of your catalog as dark, and hard to see due to the high contrast of the ambient lighting. Conversely, when browsing a digital catalog in a tunnel, many colors might appear oversaturated, due to the display being the only light source.

When designing a digital catalog, it’s hard to account for all factors that affect how viewers see your Flipbook, but there are key design considerations that can help mitigate these effects: