What is design for print? Colour management

CMYK


The CMYK color model (process color, four color) is a subtractive color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. CMYK refers to the four inks used in some color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black). Though it varies by print house, press operator, press manufacturer and press run, ink is typically applied in the order of the abbreviation.

Process colour is generally very good for reproducing pictures but there are some colours that it cannot reproduce well. This is because the gamut (or range) of reproducible color for Process Colour is not as wide as that of RGB color. As a result, certain intense values of colors such as Orange, Green, Blue, and other bright colours can sometimes appear dull or even dirty. On the other hand, bright Reds generally reproduce very well.

Since RGB and CMYK spaces are both device-dependent spaces, there is no simple or general conversion formula that converts between them. Conversions are generally done through color management systems, using color profiles that describe the spaces being converted. Nevertheless, the conversions cannot be exact, particularly where these spaces have different gamuts (as seen below):

The Gamut Warning tool in Photoshop allows you to see what colour are out of the CMYK gamut range. Before converting an RGB image to CMYK, it is useful to use various image adjustments beforehand to achieve similar colours.

RGB


Digital cameras and scanners and create images using combinations of just three colors: Red, Green and Blue (RGB). These are the primary colors of visible light and this how computers and televisions display images on their screens. RGB colors often appear brighter and more vivid specifically because the light is being projected directly into the eyes of the viewer.

This is an "additive" process in which the three colors are combined in different amounts to produce various colors. It is called "additive" because you must add varying amounts of two or more colors to achieve hues and values other than the three basic red, green and blue colors.  Computer monitors and televisions vary the amount of each color from 0 to a maximum of 255. Equal maximum amounts of all three colors (often expressed as R255, G255, B255) creates white. The absence of all three colors (R0, G0, B0) creates black. Equal amounts of all three colors somewhere between 0 and 255 will create varying shades of gray.

Source: bestprintingonline.com



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