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| Understanding Color/Color reproduction | Index | Home |
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Process color and color separation |
Theoretically, when 100% of each of the three subtractive colors cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) are mixed together, the result is black. However, impurities in the ink make it impossible to get a pure black. For this reason, the printing industry adds a separate black (K) ink, resulting in a four-color system. |
In order to reproduce continuous-tone natural images, a color image must be separated into four printing plates, one for each CMYK color. |
The principle of color separation uses the complementary relationship of the additive RGB colors and the subtractive CMY colors. For example, in order to extract the yellow component of an image when taking photos, a blue filter (blue is the complement of yellow) is placed over the lens of a camera. |
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Compare:Understanding Color/Hue contrast and complementary color contrast |
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