Little Known Facts in Four Color Printing

Color printing is the reproduction of an image or text in color, from a digital file to a hard copy form. The method used to print full range of colors is referred to as four-color process printing. This process applies four ink colors cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK).

How Colors are Achieved
These inks used in four color printing are not mixed like paint. Unlike painting, printing does not produce different colors by blending inks together. The inks printing companies use are semi transparent. The inks are laid one on top of the other with different intensities.

Through layering, the printers produce different hues or colors. At the same time too, the colors produced are as solid and as brilliant as they appear on glossy magazines.

Four color printing involves a series of steps or transformations in order to generate and reproduce quality color prints. Four color printing is also referred to as process full color and is sometimes referred to as CMYK process printing.

Cyan, magenta, yellow and black are the four principal pigments used in color printing. The result of these color combination produce a very close and reasonable reproduction of your designs or files into finished products or prints.

What You Didn’t Know About Black
Any color can produce the color black when it is moved towards the end of its own spectrum. However, doing this only consumes a reasonable amount of ink that can be wasteful. Imagine, using three colors to achieve the color black when black ink is readily available.

This is highly impractical and expensive. And with the amount of ink one has to use, the paper can get saturated with ink and become ruined. This is why black is an all too important color.

Black, as you and I both know, is a very in-demand color for printing images and text. And as far as producing images is concerned, black greatly improves the shadow and contrast of the image. This means that your prints greatly experience depth and makes it easier for your prints to enjoy highlights and definition, especially on certain details and features.

What You Didn’t Know About CMYK Mode
Computer monitors are not made equal. So are the LCD screens on your cellular phones, digital cameras and video recorders.

Much more than this, printers and computer monitors are not made equal. Printers and computer monitors have different, let us say, color profile. Computer monitors use RGB while printers produce prints using CMYK.

In this light, it is quite impossible to get a complete and accurate match. Although printing companies have their own printing machines and computers calibrated – this means that both presses and computer are aligned to process and produce the right colors – your own home computer is not calibrated with that of your printers.

While it may not create a significant impact on your prints, this, among many other factors contributes as to why an absolute or 100% replica of colors unto the print material is not guaranteed by printing companies.

What You Need to Know
Printers will always require you to send in your files in CMYK mode. The original images that you used in your design too should be sent to your printers and in CMYK mode as well.

Printers cannot print your files in RGB because the machines are set in CMYK. It would also prove problematic for the printing company to convert your file from RGB to CMYK because it would be too time-consuming. You would end up paying for professional fees and computer time.

Other than this, the original colors you wanted may not be accurately reproduced. Once again, it is because RGB have different hues from CMYK.

At this point, however, there are still a lot of things that you should know about four color printing. Nevertheless, what it pays you to know is a professional four color printing company who can give you just what you want. Having a trusted printing company, after all, can readily make things easier and better for your color printing demands.