Quickly Understand the CMYK Printing Colors and The Three Primary Colors.Why should K black be added to the CMY three primary colors?

CMYK Printing

Let’s talk about this topic today: CMYK printing colors for printing. It is often used in paper box, paper bag, label stickers( tissue paper is often printed by the pantone NO.).After we understand the principle of printing, we will know how to express when we communicate with the printing factory.

1. The three primary colors of light

Before understanding, let’s take a look at the three primary colors of light, red, green, and blue, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1

2. Three primary colors of printing

When painting, we know the three primary colors of the paint: cyan, magenta, and yellow, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2

In printing, the three primary colors of pigments are practical: C cyan, M magenta, and Y yellow.Let’s superimpose the three colors of ink two by two respectively to see the result:Mix C cyan and M magenta to get blue; mix C cyan and Y yellow to get green; mix M magenta and Y yellow to get red; mix C cyan + M magenta + Y yellow, you can Get black.

Through the superposition of the three primary colors, black can be obtained, then:

3. Since it is the three primary colors of CMY, why is there K black?

We respectively superimpose the three colors of ink together, and the overlapping part will get a black.Of course, the black that the three colors are superimposed is not very black. In addition, such black will have the following problems:

1). Due to the level of ink manufacturing, it is impossible to achieve the effect of pure black after CMY three colors are superimposed;

2) After the three-color inks are superimposed, the most commonly used black can be obtained, which is too wasteful of ink;

3). Three colors are superimposed and printed separately, there will be overprinting errors in the printing opportunity, which will affect the appearance;

4) After the multi-color ink is superimposed, the ink is too thick on the paper, not easy to dry, and easy to stick to the printed matter;

5). The black is not pure, and the contrast effect of light and dark in the printing of landscapes, people and other images is poor;

Therefore, we will use a single black ink when printing, specifically for printing black plates, such as black text, etc.; this way, it can be printed at one time without multi-color overprinting, and a purer black can be obtained.