CMYK color is a subtractive color model, meaning, that ink must be removed in order to achieve lighter colors with the lightest color you can achieve being the surface you are printing on. Most home grade, consumer & industrial printers use CMYK inks colors to reproduce images. When all of the pixels light up to full intensity, your screen is white, when they are all off, your screen is black, and any color in between is created by pixels illuminated in different values Whether you are reading this article on an older CRT or a brand new LED flat screen, the computer monitor maps using a series of Red, Green and Blue pixels. However When Red and Green are added, you get Yellow Green and Blue make Cyan Red and Blue make Magenta. RGB is a light additive color model, meaning that colors have to be added together to produce lighter colors and ultimately white.Īs seen in this diagram, when 100% Red, Green and Blue are combined, you get absolute white. CMYK color always requires four plates to be made for a print to be made, while a carefully crafted one or two color logo using PMS colors only needs two to print.Tidbits & Facts About The Pantone ®, CMYK & RGB Color ModelsĬurrently, the two most widely used color models are RGB( Red, Green, Blue) and CMYK( Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key) Both CMYK and RGB are color models that represent a specific subset of the color space visible to the human eye.ĭigital representations of images are generally produced using light in the RGB color model. PMS colors can streamline the process of printing and cut down on cost. This way a designer can create a logo that will print consistently from job to job an printer to printer. There can be so much variation in color using CMYK that Pantone set out to create a system that allowed for consistent color. PMS stands for Pantone Matching System colors. Where we all grew up knowing Yellow and blue make green and Yellow and red make orange, the printing industry grew up knowing that varying the quantities of cyan, magenta, yelllow and black creates an endless array of colors to print. We have swatch books that allows us to find the PMS value for any type of CMYK work you have done in the past.ĬMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. These colors offer a tonal range that CMYK doesn’t (see above orange). This swatch shows how much punch you lose in converting from a Pantone color to CMYK.Īt the printer we work with PMS colors on a regular basis. In using web printers like Vista Print or any other they convert your PMS color to CMYK. The above image of the orange is an example of what happens when you convert a PMS color to CMYK. If you have a logo made from this color including different screens (shades) of this green only one plate would be needed for the logo. To print this green we use the Pantone ink for Pantone color 362 and it does not have to be broken down. To print the above green it needs to broken down into four different parts. Here is an example using the color Green: PMS stands for Pantone Matching System ( PMS), a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, primarily printing, though sometimes in the manufacture of colored paint, fabric, and plastics. By standardizing the colors, different manufacturers in different locations can all refer to the Pantone system to make sure colors match without direct contact with one another. To designers and printers this is common knowledge, but to a business owner who wants to print their logo or other branding collateral this question can result in confusion. Frequently we ask if the colors for your print project are CMYK or PMS.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |