Understanding Color/Reproducing colors with monitors, printers, and scanners | Index | Home |
Color reproduction and printers |
Color printers are based on 4-color printing, using black (K), in addition to the three primary colors of cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y). Theoretically black can be produced by mixing the three CMY colors, but due to ink quality and printing conditions, it's common to add black as a fourth color for printing. |
Currently six- and seven-color printers are also available, in which light cyan, light magenta, and other colors are added to the CMYK primaries. |
An image displayed on a monitor using the three RGB primary colors must be converted to CMYK for printing. Each computer printer comes with software called a printer driver that converts color images created on the computer into a data format that can be processed by the color printer. |
Compare:Understanding Color/The three primary colors of light |