CMY & CMYK Color printing. What is the difference?
The characters stand for the color cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y) and key (K, black). Cyan is a kind of blue, magenta is a kind of red. This color coding is the basis for of the digital printing technology and therefore used extensively.
The individual components cyan, magenta, yellow and key are expressed in percentage values. 0% of one color means that the appropriate place is not stained by the appropriate color and 100% means that the appropriate place is stained completely with the appropriate color, while values between 0% and 100% means that the color is only applied in gradations. If a place is stained with 0% cyan, 0% magenta, 100% yellow and 0% key, it would result a pure yellow.
If the place is stained with 100% cyan, 0% magenta, 100% yellow and 0% key, it would result in the color green according to the subtractive mixture of colors.
According to the theory, 100% cyan, 100% magenta and 100% yellow would result in a pure black. With today's printing colors it is not possible to realize this, so in the area of printing the additional component key (K, black) is necessary.
Therefore, the difference between the CMY- and the CMYK color model is, that the CMY color model assumes that it is possible to mix black by all of the three pure colors and the CMYK color model uses black as an additional color. In the CMY color model, black is 100% cyan, 100% magenta and 100% yellow and in the CMYK color model, black is 0% cyan, 0% magenta, 0% yellow and 100% key (black). With the exception of pure colors, the CMYK color model also uses black for many other colors.
The individual components cyan, magenta, yellow and key are expressed in percentage values. 0% of one color means that the appropriate place is not stained by the appropriate color and 100% means that the appropriate place is stained completely with the appropriate color, while values between 0% and 100% means that the color is only applied in gradations. If a place is stained with 0% cyan, 0% magenta, 100% yellow and 0% key, it would result a pure yellow.
If the place is stained with 100% cyan, 0% magenta, 100% yellow and 0% key, it would result in the color green according to the subtractive mixture of colors.
According to the theory, 100% cyan, 100% magenta and 100% yellow would result in a pure black. With today's printing colors it is not possible to realize this, so in the area of printing the additional component key (K, black) is necessary.
Therefore, the difference between the CMY- and the CMYK color model is, that the CMY color model assumes that it is possible to mix black by all of the three pure colors and the CMYK color model uses black as an additional color. In the CMY color model, black is 100% cyan, 100% magenta and 100% yellow and in the CMYK color model, black is 0% cyan, 0% magenta, 0% yellow and 100% key (black). With the exception of pure colors, the CMYK color model also uses black for many other colors.