Four Colour Process Printing

versus

Spot Colour Printing

Which process is best for your company

printing requirements

There are two primary options for printing colour in the commercial world. They are spot printing & four colour process printing.

Four Colour Process Printing

Four colour process is a system where a colour image is separated into 4 different colour values by using filters and screens. The result is a colour separation of 4 images that when printed, can theoretically reproduce every colour by combining each colour in varying strengths by utilising screens.

Four colour process printing is referred to as that name because it uses three primary ink colours + black. It is sometimes referred to as CMYK printing because the actual ink colours used in four colour process printing. They are –

• Cyan – light blue.

• Magenta – a crimson shade of red

• Yellow

• Black – referred to as K so as not to get mixed up with blue.

With four colour process printing is generally more expensive than spot printing as it requires four different colours to be printed.

Most colour magazines, marketing material and books are produced using this method.

Spot Colour Printing

Spot colour printing is where a colour is created and printed in 1 run. This colour can be straight out of the tin or a mixture of two or more colours. A document may be printed in any amount of spot colours and may also be printed in four colour process then extra colours added by spot colour printing.

These additional spot colour colours can include metallic ink, fluorescent ink and gloss or mat varnish.

Which is The Best Process

Both spot colour colour and four colour process printing can be successfully produced in any of the 5 commercial printing processes.

Where a colour match is critical spot colour is generally used as the individual colours can be altered by mixing in other colours.

On the other hand the four colour printing process is technically unable to accurately reproduce spot colours. This variation may not be noticeable or may vary greatly, depending on the colour to be matched. 

I can save you lots on four colour printing or spot printing.

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