Brief History of the Printing Press
The printing press, as well as movable type as such, was invented in China sometime during the 8th or 9th centuries. Johannes Gutenberg refined the printing press in the 15th century by modifying a wine press to impress pages with his innovative form of movable type. The early 19th century saw the arrival of presses capable of printing sheets of paper in rapid succession. The modern offset press was invented in 1875 in England by Robert Barclay and refined by in 1904 by Ira Washington Rubel. Full-color printing was also developed in the early decades of the 20th century initially using a three-color process before the current 4-color (CMYK) process was standardized.
Spot Color
While color prints have existed since the appearance of the first printing press, they were laborious to produce and were typically limited to two or three colors (e.g., black & red, black, red, yellow, etc.) and were not produced in great quantity. Often, printed pieces and books were hand-colored after having been printed with only black ink. This combination of black with additional colors or just a few colors themselves is known in today’s printing terminology as using spot color. Spot color printing uses basic standardized color inks (red, blue, green, etc.) or specific colors mixed according to standardized formulas. The most prevalently used system of identification of color in the U.S. printing industry is provided by the Pantone company.
Pantone Colors
Pantone annually produces Pantone Color Guides, essentially swatch samples of ink colors printed on coated and uncoated paper stock, used by graphic designers and printers to select specific colors and to insure those colors match or are consistent throughout the printing process. The Pantone system of color identification is also known as the Pantone Matching System and its acronym (PMS) is used frequently in the printing industry.
CMYK or Process Colors
After the invention of photography in the early 19th century, a series of technological innovations made it possible to reproduce and print a photograph with remarkable fidelity to the original black and white (grayscale) image. This was accomplished by creating a halftone image of the photograph. A halftone image consists of tiny dots of black ink printed on white (or lightly-colored paper) that, when viewed without the aid of a magnifying device, creates the illusion of the full range of black and gray tones in a photograph. By the early 20th century with the development of color photography, it was discovered this same halftone process could be used to reproduce those color photographs.
The acronym CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) simply translates into the names of the colors of the inks used to reproduce color photographs. Traditionally accomplished through photographic processes until advanced computer technology became available in the 1990s, a color photograph is separated into its constituent colors of blue, red, yellow, and black. Each color is then printed as halftone dots with the colors overlayed in sequence creating the full-color illusion.
The colors created by this process are also referred to as process colors to distinguish them from spot colors.
Generally, not all of the colors defined in the Pantone color identification system can be exactly matched or created using the 4-color process. This is due to the fact that the colors created by the combination of the CMYK inks can’t replicate the colors created when inks are mixed together (rather than overlayed) to create a single spot color. However, with the availability of six and eight color offset presses, many commercial printers can print spot colors in addition to the CMYK colors. This is particularly advantageous when printing pieces where color-matching is critical such as those incorporating a company logo that uses a specific, Pantone color in their brand and identity. Or, when fluorescent inks are used to create colors outside the normal color range.
Paper Stock and Color
One thing to note is the role paper plays in how colors are reproduced in printing. Most 4-color process printing uses white, coated paper stock as the substrate. Coated stock allows the ink to rest on the surface of the paper while it dries. With uncoated stock, ink spreads as it is absorbed into the paper affecting the final perceived color. The quality of the paper stock and the choice of a gloss or matte finish are also contributing factors in how colors will appear in the printed piece.
Do you have questions about color and color printing? Give us a call (330-597-8560) and we’ll be more than happy to answer your questions!
