This section is about different colour formats used in the industry and the differences between them. It will explain how CMYK, RGB and SPOT colour formats work and when and where to use them in regards to printing.

CMYK CMYK Colour stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK. These four inks are used in printing, from your desktop inkjet printer to printing presses they need to mix these basic colour together to form the colour spectrum that you see on the final piece. This spectrum of colour is called a subtractive colour spectrum, which means that you have to subtract colours to get white (or the colour of the paper). CMYK is the only way to print on a press, so when you are creating your piece to be printed you need to have all colour art work and images in CMYK or unexpected problems will appear. This could cause delays because of extra system time. Unfortunately because of the different spectrums between RGB and CMYK you might not match some colours that you see on screen.

RGB RGB colour is an additive colour system. What this means is that the colours Red, Green and Blue are used to form a variety of colours. If you add an equal amount of red light, green light and blue light you will get white light. This is the colour system that your computer monitor displays and even when you are watching TV, the pictures are being displayed in a RGB colour mode. This colour spectrum can not be used for printing Printing on the other hand mixes ink pigments to create colour. This is the reason why the colour on your screen doesn't look the same as the colour on your printed piece. OWP has the best in colour calibration, this enables us to see and match the colour as closely as possible to the final print.

SPOT Spot colours are premade inks that can be used instead of, or in addition to CMYK process colour inks. A spot colour is usually a PMS (Pantone Matching System®) colour designated by a number and whether or not the ink is to be printed on specific stock. For example Pantone 123 CVC is used for coated stock and Pantone 281 CVU is used for uncoated stocks. Spot colours are generally cheaper than printing four colours. One ink (for example purple) is cheaper than printing four inks (CMYK to make up the purple). When printing spot colours each colour needs its own plate on the press. Spot colours are mainly used in one to three colour jobs. If you are using four spot colours you may as well make it a CMYK job (unless the colours are absolutely specific to the content). CMYK printing is generally cheaper than four spot colours.