Process Color

Unlike Spot colors, which use a different pre-mixed ink for each printed color, Process color is a system of using four standard inks and mixing them on the press to create a wide spectrum of different colors. The inks used are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK.) One of the most common uses for process color is for color photograph reproduction. The color images are broken down by software into their CMYK components, and each component layer is imaged to a separate piece of film. When the CMYK plates are printed on top of each other, the color photo reappears in full color. Pantone colors can also be built out of process colors. For example, your job may call for four color process and one spot color. It may turn out that the spot color is easily reproducible with process colors. You could save some money if you designed your piece using four color process builds for everything instead of adding a fifth color. Please discuss these issues with a CSR and decide on your color scheme before you spend a lot of time creating the electronic files. Their are several limitations on what can be simulated with process colors. Many Pantone colors are simply not reproducible with process colors. Since process colors use Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black to create the other colors, you can imagine you would have more success simulating colors that are close to one of these colors to start with. Cyan and Magenta make a dark purple, Magenta and Yellow make a red, Cyan and Yellow make a green. But these builds tend to be very dark, and a little dull.

Tints

Besides specifying a spot or process color, you can also make an object's line or fill a tint of some other color, either spot or process. Tints are expressed in percentages from 0 to 100. A 50% tint of PANTONE 128 CVC will produce a 50% halftone screen for that ink in the specified areas. [Back To Articles]