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THE PROS AND CONS OF USING A FOUR COLOR PROCESS

By: Jinky C. Mesias, Mon Dec 5th, 2005 09:29:17 PM

There are so many articles written about the four color process but the question on its usefulness still requires further explanation. There are actually three primary colors of light that the human eyes perceive and these are red, blue and green. So why create a four color scheme? Although the three colors can already come up with various color mixes but the problem with the combined colors is that it is never great when it comes to printing on papers. And so technology calls for the creation of colors that can solve the problem of printing on papers thus the creation of CMYK which stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

The combination of any of the four colors would result to the three colors of red, blue and green. Just how is this achieved? Well, in order to come up with the yellow color, the colors red and green are processed. The black color is the outcome of the combination of the other three processed colors. The importance of black in printing is that it adds intensity to printed images.

The crude way of printing images or pictures is to break it into its four color components by the use of a process camera as well as four filters. The process camera is a special type of camera which is designed for copying flat art. It makes used of a high resolution flat field lens used to take pictures of flat objects. The process camera also works well for line shots images that have no gray tones, halftones or color separations. On the other hand the filter to be use requires fine screen made up of dots. Individual screens are used to filter the four colors. After which the film would then be process and then printed on a metal plate that is specially designed for such purpose. The next step would require placing of the metal plate on the printing press.

However, the four color process is not without flaws. Most of the common problems encountered with the use of four color process is the difficulty in creating vibrant colors specifically when it comes to the colors red and violet. Another drawback is the expensive cost of correcting colors. An example of an error in color is when images appear too dark. However, the quality of colors is also dependent on the type of paper used. The difference in the quality of colors is imminent especially when applied in a textured and high quality reflective paper. The high quality reflective paper is best preferred since it reflects the real quality of the colors. And also there are instances wherein images looks good in prepress or during the proofing stage but looks terrible when printed. The used of water when mixing inks also results to images that are not of good quality. There is also the tendency for the plates to be accidentally moved from the press which would certainly mess up the colors.

For comments and suggestions regarding the article kindly visit 4 Color Printing

About the author: Jinky C. Mesias is a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Major in Business Management. She is at present an Associate Manager of a Life Insurance Corporation and a freelance writer.

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