View Our Current NewsletterIssue 6 2010 - RGB, CMYK, and PMS: the Alphabet of Color
One of the more difficult tasks we face when reproducing your printed material is to be certain the color is correct. When we are printing your business stationery, it is critical that the color remains consistent for the first and each subsequent printing. When printing your company brochure or newsletter, the color on the finished piece must conform to your expectations. And if we are printing in full color – especially photographs or food or people’s skin tones – a good color match is essential.So why is color matching such a problem? The answer lies in a combination of how color is created and how the human eye perceives color.
Color is caused by light; without light, color would not exist. In turn, light is a form of energy. Visible light – the part of the electromagnetic energy spectrum whose wavelengths our eyes can detect – is blue at one end and red at the other. All the colors in nature we perceive fall along the spectrum from blue to red.
Read more: Issue 6 2010 - RGB, CMYK, and PMS: the Alphabet of Color
PrinTips and Tricks - Combining Color in a Document
A color wheel is a useful tool to help determine how to combine colors in a document. The color wheel represents both the primary and secondary colors of visible light.The primary colors (red, blue and green) appear at 2 o’clock, 6 o’clock and 10 o’clock while the secondary colors (cyan, magenta and yellow) appear between the primary colors. Cyan appears in between blue and green at 8 o’clock; yellow in between green and red at 12 o’clock and magenta in between red and blue at 4 o’clock.
Read more: PrinTips and Tricks - Combining Color in a Document
PrinTips Idea - Using Color In Printing
As a general guideline, we recommend incorporating color into almost any printing project. Use of color improves reader comprehension, calls attention to important information, and improves the overall appearance of your document.A common way to use PMS color is to combine it with black ink as an accent. The color draws the reader’s eye and emphasizes the information printed in color. Or, if used for headlines or subheads in text, the color enhances the document’s organizational structure by creating easily discerned text segments.
PrinTips Q and A - What is a PMS Color?
PMS is an acronym for Pantone Matching System TM, an industry standard for identifying and matching colors. The Pantone Matching System TM was created by Lawrence Herbert in 1963 to solve problems associated with producing accurate color matches in printing and graphic arts.