In the packaging printing industry, we usually refer to CMYK and spot color printing when describing printing needs. What are they? Where is the difference between them?
Definition
CMYK: also called four-color printing. It is to use CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) four colors to overprint the desired color. In layman’s terms, it is to use the different superposition of these four colors to obtain the required color, as long as the color has a gradient, it is all four-color overprinting. Four-color printing is superimposed with dots, and dots of different colors can be seen with a magnifying glass.
The Spot-color printing: It refers to a printing process that uses other color inks other than yellow, magenta, cyan and black ink to reproduce the original color.like special gold, special silver. Spot color printing is a single color, no gradient, the pattern is solid, and the dots cannot be seen with a magnifying glass. (In general, spot color printing costs slightly more.)
when to use?
For CMYK:
Photos taken by color photography that reflect the colorful changes in nature, color artworks by painters, or other pictures containing many different colors must be processed for technical requirements or economic considerations. The electronic color separation machine or the color desktop system scans the color separation, and then adopts the four-color printing process to copy and complete.
For spot-color printing:
1. Single-color or two-color books: only 1-2 colors, you can use a single-color/two-color printing machine to reduce the printing cost.
2. For better effect of large-area color blocks: Four-color printing uses dot superposition. If large-area color blocks use spot color printing, the color can be more standard and the solid base effect is better;
3. The color requirements are very high: such as corporate standard colors, etc., the designer will specify the Pantone spot color value. Four-color ink printing different batches of printed matter will inevitably have color deviations, and Pantone color values are universal in the world, and Pantone ink manufacturers are professionally deployed, which can minimize color deviation.
4. Special color inks need to be used: special gold, special silver, fluorescent ink, etc., all of which cannot be mixed with CMYK four-color inks, so they need to use special color printing.
