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The abbreviations (4C; 2C; and 1C) refer to how many ink colors are used to compose a print material.

    4C (4 Color Process) - A print ad that uses the standard press colors of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black to simulate a large number of different colors.
    2C (2 Color Process) - A print ad that was created using only 2 colors; Black and Magenta. These two colors are representative of any two possible color combinations. If you wanted to run a 2C ad in other spot colors, tell your printer which color plate should represent which alternate spot color.
    1C (1 Color Process)
– A print ad using only one color; and it's Black
 
 

If you were reading this piece in a printed magazine, you would be reading it in a CMYK color space. CMYK color space is everywhere.  As opposed to RGB which builds color through the addition of light, CMYK adds color through the addition of colors. Because of this, colors reproduced in CMYK sometimes can‘t match colors created in RGB. For example if you open up Photoshop and create a CMYK image, when you go to your color picker, certain colors built with non-CMYK color will be displayed with an alert, notifying you that the color can not be re-created with CMYK. Photoshop shows you what the CMYK equivalent will look like.  In four-color process (CMYK) printing, primary colors (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) are mixed together to produce most of the colors that you see in normal magazines and color books. While there are six-color (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black, Light Cyan and Light Magenta) color spaces, these are less common and are typically used for photo printing.  CYMK is what the vast majority of commercial printers do. Images and artwork targeted for reproduction in a CMYK color space must be properly formulated to print correctly. It is difficult to get an accurate CMYK print from an RGB image.

Cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black) 
Cyan, magenta, yellow, and key (black)
 
CMYK Layers
Layers of simulated glass vividly show how semi-transparent layers of color combine on paper into spectrum of CMYK colors.

An image along with its cyan, magenta, and yellow components.
An image along with its cyan, magenta, and yellow components. 

An image along with its cyan, magenta, and yellow components.

The same image, this time represented by the CMYK model. It is evident that significantly less color ink would be necessary to print this image when key is used.
 
 
Printing technicians around the world use the term spot color to mean any color generated by a non-process color ink; such as metallic, fluorescent, spot varnish, or custom hand-mixed inks. Spot colors are printed with premixed inks on a printing press. You can choose from hundreds of different spot-color inks. A spot color printed at 100% is a solid color and has no dot pattern. A tint is a lightened spot and is created by printing smaller halftone dots of the base color. This is also called screening the color.

4. What is RGB?

The one that you are perhaps most familiar with (or aware of) is RGB. If you are reading this, you are reading an RGB display via your computer. RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue. The three colors that create every other tone of color that is visible on your screen. There is no black or white ‘color’.  Neither is there yellow or purple. They are all combinations of red, green, and blue. White is the sum of all three colors, where as black is the absence of all three colors. While each monitor is capable of displaying a wide range of colors, there are still inconsistencies between computers. However, these are often noticeable only to professional designers. Take a look at your system settings.  Make sure you are displaying thousands or millions of colors rather than the lowest setting of 216. The fact that some computers are defaulted to the lowest setting led to “web safe” colors.  Web safe colors are referenced by their hexadecimal number. These color’s names are pairs of characters, ex. FFCC00 and OOCCFF are colors you can specify and expect them to render fairly consistently from one machine to the next.

The RGB color model mapped to a cube (with cut-away shown)
The RGB color model mapped to a cube (with cut-away shown)
 
A representation of additive color mixing. Projection of primary color lights on a screen shows secondary colors where two overlap; the combination of all three of red, green, and blue in appropriate intensities makes white.
A representation of additive color mixing. Projection of primary colorlights on a screen shows secondary colors where two overlap; the combination of all three of red, green, and blue in appropriate intensities makes white.
 

An RGB image, along with its separate R, G and B components; Note that the white snow consists of strong red, green and blue; the brown barn is composed of strong red and green with little blue; the dark green grass consists of strong green with little red or blue; and the light blue sky is composed of strong blue and moderately strong red and green.


5. What is PMS?

Spot colors, also known as PMS colors, and officially as Pantone Matching System colors are specific color formulas that will reproduce accurately in print. Instead of simulating colors by combining primary colors, spot (PMS) colors are pre-mixed with existing and published color formulas. Because of this, you are nearly guaranteed that your PMS186 from one printer will be matched by a PMS 186 from another printer. Often the PMS colors are pre-mixed by the ink factory, leaving even less to chance. “Spot” colors refer to the actual printing process by which they are applied. It is possible to have spot colors that actually have no color to them at all.  Spot varnishes are glossy or dull varnishes applied to specific areas in a printed piece to achieve specific results.

 

Process colors are reproduced by printing overlapping dots (halftone screens) of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) inks to simulate a large number of different colors. To create blue, for example, you combine cyan dots and magenta dots. Your eyes merge the cyan and magenta to perceive the color blue. 


7. What does PMS mean?

Often referred to as PMS, the Pantone Matching System is the most popular color matching system in the printing industry. PMS is considered spot color.

A true PMS color is defined by a mixture of inks that will provide a specific color (ex. PMS185 is a common bright red). Pantone, PMS and the Pantone Matching System are trademarks of Pantone, Inc.

PMS Color Chart
A Solid Matte Formula Guide from Pantone®, 2005 edition.