RGB stands for Red, Green, and Blue, the three colors of light that screens combine to create every color you see on a display. It's an additive color model, meaning colors are made by adding light together, so mixing all three at full intensity produces white, and mixing none produces black.
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Each channel is typically expressed as a value from 0 to 255, giving you over 16 million possible color combinations. RGB is the standard color mode for anything shown on a screen, from websites and apps to photos and videos.

Why does RGB matter?

Designers work in RGB whenever they design for digital screens, since it matches how monitors and displays actually produce color. Using the correct color mode ensures the colors you pick in your design tool look the same once they're rendered on a user's device.

If you export assets meant for print instead of screen, you'll typically need to convert them to CMYK, since printers mix ink rather than light. Mixing up the two modes is a common cause of colors looking off between what you designed and what actually gets printed or displayed.

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