Colour for print

The practical use for colour in print.


Print (CMYK) produces a subtractive colour and screen (RGB) produce a additive colour.

The colour gamut.

Converting from RGB to CMYK can be tricky and produce undesired results.

Terminology.

CMYK

Stands for "Cyan Magenta Yellow Black." These are the four basic colours used for printing colour images. Unlike RGB (red, green, blue), which is used for creating images on your computer screen, CMYK colours are "subtractive." This means the colours get darker as you blend them together. Since RGB colours are used for light, not pigments, the colours grow brighter as you blend them or increase their intensity.

RGB
(red/green/blue – screen based) Additive.


Spot Colour
Print technicians around the world use the term spot colour to mean any colour generated by a non-standard offset ink; such as metallic, fluorescent, spot varnish, or custom hand-mixed inks. (as opposed to obtaining a colour by via mix of CMYK).


Greyscale

One colour black and all the shades of grey through to white (black and white photography is grey scale).

Duotone

(when a continuous tone image is printed in 2 or more spot colours – this term is also generally used when describing tri and quadtones.

Monochrome

Monochromatic colours are all the colours of a single hue derived from one colour and extended using the shades,tones and tints of that colour.

Halftone

This is a mechanical process (as opposed to chemical) for converting tonal values into a series of dots that although solid dots, when printed give the impression of continuous tone.