Color printing:

Definition: Color separation is the process by which original artwork is separated into
individual color components for printing. The components are cyan, magenta, yellow and
black, known as CMYK. By combining these colors, a wide spectrum of colors can be
produced on the printed page. In this four color printing process, each color is applied to a
printing plate. When the colors are combined on paper (they are actually printed as small
dots), the human eye combines the colors to see the final image. The use of plates for
printing is part of the process known as lithography.
Also Known As: Four-color Process

The act of decomposing a color graphic or photo into single-color layers. For example, to print full-color
photos with an offset printingpress, one must first separate the photo into the four basic ink colors: cyan,
magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). Each single-color layer is then printed separately, one on top of the
other, to give the impression of infinite colors.
This type of color separation, mixing three or four colors to produce an infinite variety of colors, is
called process color separation. Another type of color separation, called spot color separation, is used to
separate colors that are not to be mixed. In this case, each spot color is represented by its own ink,
which is specially mixed. Spot colors are effective for highlighting text but they cannot be used to
reproduce full-color images.
Traditionally, process color separation has been performed photographically with different colored filters.
However, many modern desktop publishing systems are now capable of producing color separations
for graphics stored electronically.

This

capability

is

essential

if

you

want

to

create

full-

color documents on your computer and then print them using an offset printer. You don't need to perform
color separation if you are printing directly to a color printer because in this case the printer itself
performs the color separation internally.

Color printing or colour printing is the reproduction of an image or text in color (as
opposed to simpler black and white or monochrome printing). Any natural scene or color
photograph can be optically and physiologically dissected into three primary colors, red,
green and blue, roughly equal amounts of which give rise to the perception of white, and
different proportions of which give rise to the visual sensations of all other colors. The
additive combination of any two primary colors in roughly equal proportion gives rise to
the perception of a secondary color. For example, red and green yields yellow, red and
blue yields magenta (a purple hue), and green and blue yield cyan (a turquoise hue).
Only yellow is counter-intuitive. Yellow, cyan and magenta are merely the "basic"
secondary colors: unequal mixtures of the primaries give rise to perception of many other
colors all of which may be considered "tertiary."

Modern techniques[edit]
While there are many techniques for reproducing images in color, specific graphic
processes and industrial equipment are used for mass reproduction of color images on
paper. In this sense, "color printing" involves reproduction techniques suited for printing
presses capable of thousands or millions of impressions for publishing newspapers and
magazines, brochures, cards, posters and similar mass-market items. In this type of
industrial or commercial printing, the technique used to print full-color images, such as
color photographs, is referred to as four-color-process or merely process printing. Four
inks

are

used:

three

secondary

colors

plus

black.

These

ink

colors

are cyan, magenta and yellow; abbreviated as CMYK. Cyan can be thought of as minusred, magenta as minus-green, and yellow as minus-blue. These inks are semitransparent or translucent. Where two such inks overlap on the paper due to sequential
printing impressions, a primary color is perceived. For example, yellow (minus-blue)
overprinted by magenta (minus green) yields red. Where all three inks may overlap,
almost all incident light is absorbed or subtracted, yielding near black, but in practical
terms it is better and cheaper to use a separate black ink instead of combining three
colored inks. The secondary or subtractive colors cyan, magenta and yellow may be
considered "primary" by printers and watercolorists (whose basic inks and paints are
transparent).
Two graphic techniques are required to prepare images for four-color printing. In the "prepress" stage, original images are translated into forms that can be used on a printing
press, through "color separation," and "screening" or "halftoning." These steps make
possible the creation of printing plates that can transfer color impressions to paper on
printing presses based on the principles of lithography.
An

emerging

method

of

full-color

printing

is six-color

process

printing (for

example, Pantone's Hexachrome system) which adds orange and green to the traditional
CMYK inks for a larger and more vibrant gamut, or color range. However, such alternate
color systems still rely on color separation, halftoning and lithography to produce printed
images.
Color printing can also involve as few as one color ink, or multiple color inks which are
not the primary colors. Using a limited number of color inks, or specific color inks in
addition to the primary colors, is referred to as "spot color" printing. Generally, spot-color
inks are specific formulations that are designed to print alone, rather than to blend with
other inks on the paper to produce various hues and shades. The range of available spot
color inks, much like paint, is nearly unlimited, and much more varied than the colors that
can be produced by four-color-process printing. Spot-color inks range from subtle pastels
to intense fluorescents to reflective metallics.

Color printing involves a series of steps, or transformations, to generate a quality color

reproduction. The following sections focus on the steps used when reproducing a color
image in CMYK printing, along with some historical perspective.

Color separation process[edit]

The first widely reproduced image printed using the three-color process, by William Kurtz (January
1893)

Typically color separation is the responsibility of the Color Separator. This includes
cleaning up the file to make it print ready and creating a proof for the prepress approval
process. The process of color separation starts by separating the original artwork into
red, green, and blue components (for example by a digital scanner). Before digital
imaging was developed, the traditional method of doing this was to photograph the image
three times, using a filter for each color. However this is achieved, the desired result is
three grayscale images, which represent the red, green, and blue (RGB) components of
the original image:
The next step is to invert each of these separations. When a negative image of the red
component is produced, the resulting image represents the cyan component of the
image. Likewise, negatives are produced of the green and blue components to produce
magenta and yellow separations, respectively. This is done because cyan, magenta, and
yellow are subtractive primaries which each represent two of the three additive primaries
(RGB) after one additive primary has been subtracted from white light.
Cyan, magenta, and yellow are the three basic colors used for color reproduction. When
these three colors are variously used in printing, the result should be a reasonable
reproduction of the original, but in practice this is not the case. Due to limitations in
the inks, the darker colors are dirty and muddied. To resolve this, a black separation is
also created, which improves the shadow and contrast of the image. Numerous
techniques exist to derive this black separation from the original image; these

include grey component replacement, under color removal, and under color addition. This
printing technique is referred to as CMYK (the "K" stands for Key, a traditional word for
the black printing plate).
Today's digital printing methods do not have the restriction of a single color space that
traditional CMYK processes do. Many presses can print from files that were ripped with
images using either RGB or CMYK modes. The color reproduction abilities of a particular
color space can vary; the process of obtaining accurate colors within a color model is
called color matching.

Inks used in color printing presses are semi-transparent and can be printed on top of
each other to produce different hues. For example, green results from printing yellow and
cyan inks on top of each other. However, a printing press cannot vary the amount of ink
applied to particular picture areas except through "screening," a process that represents
lighter shades as tiny dots, rather than solid areas, of ink. This is analogous to mixing
white paint into a color to lighten it, except the white is the paper itself. In process color
printing, the screened image, or halftone for each ink color is printed in succession. The
screen grids are set at different angles, and the dots therefore create tiny rosettes, which,
through a kind of optical illusion, appear to form a continuous-tone image. You can view
the halftoning, which enables printed images, by examining a printed picture under
magnification.

Traditionally, halftone screens were generated by inked lines on two sheets of glass that
were cemented together at right angles. Each of the color separation films were then
exposed through these screens. The resulting high-contrast image, once processed, had
dots of varying diameter depending on the amount of exposure that area received, which
was modulated by the grayscale separation film image.
The glass screens were made obsolete by high-contrast films where the halftone dots
were exposed with the separation film. This in turn was replaced by a process where the
halftones are electronically generated directly on the film with a laser. Most
recently, computer to plate (CTP) technology has allowed printers to bypass the film
portion of the process entirely. CTP images the dots directly on the printing plate with a
laser, saving money, and eliminating the film step. The amount of generation loss in
printing a lithographic negative onto a lithographic plate, unless the processing
procedures are completely ignored, is almost completely negligible, as there are no
losses of dynamic range, no density gradations, nor are there any colored dyes, or large
silver grains to contend with in an ultra-slow rapid access negative.

Screens with a "frequency" of 60 to 120 lines per inch (lpi) reproduce color photographs
in newspapers. The coarser the screen (lower frequency), the lower the quality of the
printed image. Highly absorbent newsprint requires a lower screen frequency than lessabsorbent coated paper stock used in magazines and books, where screen frequencies
of 133 to 200 lpi and higher are used.
The measure of how much an ink dot spreads and becomes larger on paper is called dot
gain. This phenomenon must be accounted for in photographic or digital preparation of
screened images. Dot gain is higher on more absorbent, uncoated paper stock such as
newsprint.