Color Printing, How is it done?
You have 3 color cartridges cyan, magenta and yellow and one black cartridge and when you print the wonderful rainbow over the trees we see below it comes out beautiful. How does that happen?
First off we should explain that the combination of the colors and the black have a name and it is: CMYK (spelled out when spoken) and it stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and key or black the reason why K is used is to avoid the confusion with B for Blue. When printing the ink cartridge or the toner cartridge use different color combinations to reproduce other colors, it is impossible to reproduce all colors but it does account for millions of colors. CMYK then is a color mixing system that depends on chemical pigments to achieve the desired hues (what we think of as color). CMYK is capable of creating so many different colors because it doesn’t only use inks in varying ratios to each other, but with a varying concentration, noted as a percentage. These combinations create colors that span the spectrum in hue as well as tone, or intensity.
The color mixing system is called the subtractive color system and it is different than the additive color system used by your monitor RGB. Because this topic has plenty of info and lots of detail I will break it into different post during the entire week or as long as it takes me to explain. So do not worry, you can find more info about RGB system here.
Anyhow, the subtractive color system like the name suggest subtracts light instead of reflecting it. The printing inks are transparent thus allowing the light to pass through and reflect off the paper base. So the viewer of the image sees the unabsorbed light reflected on the paper that serves as the reflector.
To be reproducible when printed, an original color image, such as a photograph, must first be converted into a pattern of small dots for each of the four colors (CMYK). When printed with ink on paper, the small dots fool the eye and give the visual appearance of the original Image. In theory subtracting light of the three colors in the exact combination will produce black but it is actually a dark brown color, the fourth color K is needed then to produce true black.
Let us then review: The reason why I can print different color images with only 4 cartridges is because combining the cyan, magenta and yellow pigments or dyes to subtract portions of white light illuminating a white paper produce other colors and when the image has black as the main color it uses K to resemble it all the way. Got it?
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First off we should explain that the combination of the colors and the black have a name and it is: CMYK (spelled out when spoken) and it stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and key or black the reason why K is used is to avoid the confusion with B for Blue. When printing the ink cartridge or the toner cartridge use different color combinations to reproduce other colors, it is impossible to reproduce all colors but it does account for millions of colors. CMYK then is a color mixing system that depends on chemical pigments to achieve the desired hues (what we think of as color). CMYK is capable of creating so many different colors because it doesn’t only use inks in varying ratios to each other, but with a varying concentration, noted as a percentage. These combinations create colors that span the spectrum in hue as well as tone, or intensity.
The color mixing system is called the subtractive color system and it is different than the additive color system used by your monitor RGB. Because this topic has plenty of info and lots of detail I will break it into different post during the entire week or as long as it takes me to explain. So do not worry, you can find more info about RGB system here.
Anyhow, the subtractive color system like the name suggest subtracts light instead of reflecting it. The printing inks are transparent thus allowing the light to pass through and reflect off the paper base. So the viewer of the image sees the unabsorbed light reflected on the paper that serves as the reflector.
To be reproducible when printed, an original color image, such as a photograph, must first be converted into a pattern of small dots for each of the four colors (CMYK). When printed with ink on paper, the small dots fool the eye and give the visual appearance of the original Image. In theory subtracting light of the three colors in the exact combination will produce black but it is actually a dark brown color, the fourth color K is needed then to produce true black.
Let us then review: The reason why I can print different color images with only 4 cartridges is because combining the cyan, magenta and yellow pigments or dyes to subtract portions of white light illuminating a white paper produce other colors and when the image has black as the main color it uses K to resemble it all the way. Got it?
source
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Posted by Karla Arostegui - Content Mgr. at 3/30/2009 10:42 AM 
Categories: Ink and Toner Cartridges:Printing Tips and Crafts
Tags: printing process ink toners images printer ink ink cartridges toner cartridge black ink
Categories: Ink and Toner Cartridges:Printing Tips and Crafts
Tags: printing process ink toners images printer ink ink cartridges toner cartridge black ink
It's straight to the point! In other words, and do not say!
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