Those pits about color in printing

01"Heh, damn chromatic aberration"

The first question, I have changed to CMYK, why is there still the color difference in printing?!

Don't worry, it's unavoidable.

There are too many factors that affect the printing color 😱！

No one can count them, such as ink varieties (such as environmentally friendly inks, UV inks, quick-drying inks, etc.), ink manufacturers, ink raw materials, printing machines, environment temperature, environment humidity, etc.

You may have heard the explanation of the color difference by the printing factory, saying that the standard of ±10% of Chinese printed matter is qualified, then how big is the color difference of ±10%, just do a comparison to know.

If the three primary colors are used without dots, the color difference is acceptable.

However, if you mix the two primary colors together, you can feel it again↓

You see, dark blue has the largest color difference, as long as the red ink is reduced a little, the color will be cooler; the cyan ink will be reduced a little, and the color will be warmer. This is the most difficult to solve because each ink actually has a different color cast regardless of the brand.

Generally, "cyan (C)" is slightly magenta and blue, "magenta (M)" is generally cyan and yellow and purple, and only "yellow (Y)" is only slightly magenta and slightly orange. It is difficult to batch print the dark blue color on a computer monitor.

02"Printers: Hate to Die"

Some colors are difficult to do, and the printing house is also a headache.

Such as the mysterious purple ↓

If the printing master sees that the background color is pure purple, he wants to cut people's hearts.

Whether it is dark purple↓

Still light purple ↓

The color deviation is not only a little bit...  

And brown is also on the death list↓

Do you think this is the most serious color cast? no no no, and one of the scariest 4-color grays.

Since there are too many colors that can appear in 4-color gray, here are only a few obvious ones for you to feel ↓

Since chromatic aberration cannot be avoided, you have to know about spot colors!

You can think of spot colors as "colors specially designed for a certain print", which are not synthesized by printing C, M, Y, K, but are printed with an exclusive configuration of ink.

When you are very color demanding, you can choose to use spot colors. The advantage is of course that the printing is accurate, the disadvantage is that you have to be rich.

Last but not least, spot color is not equal to PANTONE color!

03"Color difference, retreat retreat"

There are so many color pits, that what we can do is minimize the chromatic aberration. Those color pits can’t be beaten, and we can hide them.

One: Colors that are easy to color cast, if you can't use them, try not to use them, especially 4-color gray, please delete it in your color book!

Two: purple, brown, dark blue, orange, and gradient red is very easy to cast colors, so don’t use them as a background color for a large area.

Three: It is really necessary to use the above colors as the background color, and if the customer has high requirements for color, then you can choose to use spot color printing.

(If you make a color that is prone to color cast as a spot color, the printing cost will also increase. Another point, if you make 1 spot color and the other is 4 colors, please go to 5-color printing If you have made 2 spot colors, then you need to find a 6-color printing press, and so on. 5-color presses and 6-color presses are still relatively common, and 7-color presses and 8-color presses are relatively rare.)

Four: if you have the opportunity, you can go to the printing factory to follow the color and understand the printing process. It is difficult to understand just by looking at the text.

(When following the color, remember to be humble to the printing master. When the printing master brings the printed manuscript in front of you, you only need to ask, can it be darker here? Lighter? Red? Blue? Yellow? Don't Point fingers.)

Five: When color matching, remember to take it outside and see it in a sunny place.

(Never match colors on the sample table of the printing machine. Let’s not say whether the color temperature of the light source is qualified. Even if it is qualified, our usual color temperature is different from the color temperature of the sample table, and the color will look different. .)