Printing Color Basics
While entire books have been written on the topic of color, we will keep this as simple and to the point as possible.
Digital Printing Color
Our digital presses use toner instead of ink. Basically, it's a very big (very expensive!) laser printer using cyan, magenta, yellow and black to create as much color as can be achieved by combining these colors. Commonly referred to as CMYK, it’s very cost-effective and capable of very good quality output. While CMYK can create a fairly broad spectrum of color, there are limitations. For instance, some spot colors are used in offset and screen printing that cannot be reproduced with CMYK. Neon pink is an extreme example of this, any combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black will never give you a neon pink. The only way to print a vibrant neon color is with a specially formulated ink such as a Pantone match.
Offset and Screen Printing Color
While CMYK is commonly used in offset printing to produce full-color pictures, offset and screen printing also use spot color inks. These inks are created from a series of base colors, a very similar process you would see at a paint store where a selection of base colors are used in varying amounts to produce colors from a swatch book. The most common spot color system in use today is the Pantone system. We use both the Pantone coated and uncoated swatch books depending on which type of paper is being printed. The ink is identical in the way it is mixed but the coated or uncoated paper makes the color appear different in many cases. For screen printing on glass, we use the Pantone coated swatch book.
The Importance of using a Swatch Book
Not many people, including designers, have a full set of Pantone swatch books as they are rather pricey and will fade with time. Often instead of using the books, people look up Pantone colors online. This is a dangerous way to view color as there are many variables introduced by doing so including monitors that are not color calibrated and the fact that a monitor is RGB backlit and printed color is reflective – two very different color worlds (what are called “color spaces”). You may not wind up with the color you thought you would get going from color on your monitor to the printed version.
Here's an analogy, you want to repaint a room so you go online to view paint colors and buy paint based on what you saw on your monitor. If you have ever bought paint you know how tricky it can be. It often looks different from what you saw in the store compared to when you paint your room, even though the paint matched the color swatch perfectly. That is because color is all about the lighting it is viewed in. In essence, without light color does not exist. Depending on the color spectrum of the light, the color you see printed can look very different. Viewing a color swatch preferably in the lighting it will normally be viewed in is the most accurate way to view color.
The bottom line is if you want to print spot colors using the Pantone system you should buy a set of the books. We have some Pantone color chips available but not all the colors in the system, as they keep adding colors and it gets cost prohibitive trying to keep up with all the swatches as new ones are introduced.
Learn more about how the Pantone System works.
How to Prepare Your File for Print
When working in InDesign or Illustrator use CMYK for digital printing. If you are trying to reproduce a Pantone color with digital printing you should use the Pantone swatch in your art, choose either the Coated or Uncoated version according to paper your design will be printed on. If you supply us with RGB files they will be converted to CMYK before printing which may produce unexpected results. You can minimize this by converting RGB to CMYK on your end before sending them to us. If you have further questions on color feel free to contact us.
Learn more about handling color in Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop