Archive for January, 2010

Posted on January 25, 2010 - by Lisa Nalewak

CMYK – The Color Format for Printed, Full-Color Images

This is the 3rd in a series of articles on Graphic Design specifically written for Business Professionals.

CMYK stands for “Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black”, and CMYK color – sometimes referred to as “4-color process” or “process” color – is used specifically to produce full-color graphic materials and photographs on a “4-color” printing press. The “4” refers to the number of inks used  (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) and “process” refers to a special printing technique that recreates the full spectrum of visible colors using just these four ink colors.

A graphic or photograph that was printed using CMYK color is made up of thousands of overlapping little dots of ink that the press puts down on paper as the paper passes through it. And  – yup, you guessed it – those dots are cyan, magenta, yellow and black in color. The angle and density of these different colored dots relative to each other, and the diameter of the dots themselves, affect the color being displayed in a particular part of a printed document.

For example, large yellow and cyan dots placed together without any magenta or black dots nearby will make that part of a document look green. Large magenta and cyan dots with no other colored dots nearby will produce a purple or dark blue. Large dots of all four colors placed together will create a very dark, rich black.

The size of the dots, both in actual dimension and in relation to one another, will change the saturation and hue of the color. For example, using our green example above, if the yellow dots are larger than the cyan dots, the green will look more yellow, or “lime-colored”. If the cyan dots are larger than the yellow dots, the green will look more blue, or “kelly-green”. If the dots are small and let a lot of the background (in this case, white paper) show through, the color will be lighter. If the dots are larger and don’t let as much white show through, the color will be “brighter”, or “darker”. By adjusting the size of each dot relative to the other and the size of the dot to allow more or less of the background show through, you can recreate any color from a light lime yellow to a dark green-blue, and everything in-between. If you add a black dot nearby, adjusting its size and its density relative to the yellow and blue dots will allow you to make the color darker or lighter. If you add magenta, you’ll start to move the color towards any other number of colors depending again on the number of magenta dots relative to the yellow, blue and black dots, and the size of the magenta dot relative to the yellow, blue and black dots.

The graphic below is a good visual explanation of how 4-color process printing works to achieve different color results.

In essence, 4-color process printing uses the same color principles you learned as a kid in art class. Just like mixing the primary colors (red, blue and yellow) on an artist’s palette allowed you to create an entire spectrum of other colors to fingerpaint with, “mixing” our 4 “primary” printing ink colors (or adjusting the size, angle and relative density of each of the 4 colored dots throughout a document) allows a printing press to recreate a good portion of the visible color spectrum, and produce a “full-color” image.

When graphic designers create graphics meant to be printed in full-color – like for brochures, catalogues, magazines, and even for full-color logos or business cards – they “set” the colors for the graphics they create as “CMYK”. This way, when a printing press outputs these files as printed materials, it understands the right density and sizes for each of the four colored dots throughout the document in order to achieve the final desired result.

Some computer programs are able to display CMYK format color graphics on your computer monitor, even though you know (if you read my previous post on RGB color) that monitors use RGB (Red, Green Blue) as their color format instead of CMYK. These programs come with a conversion utility that allows the program to tell your monitor what the appropriate RGB color is for the CMYK colors defined in the graphic, and it’ll display the RGB colors instead. Some programs aren’t able to do this. Web browsers and browser based email applications generally aren’t able to display CMYK graphics at all.

What does this mean to me?

So what things do you need to keep in mind about CMYK color that’ll make your life easier when you purchase design services or printing services, or need to use or modify art you already have on file?

1)      The vast majority of full-color, commercial printing equipment use CMYK format color. As a result, PRINTING PRESSES CAN NOT PRINT ARTWORK SET UP IN RGB COLOR. Printing presses have no idea what RGB color is. You may as well stand next to a printing press and try to verbally describe the colors to it yourself for all the good RGB artwork will do you. You must make sure that any artwork you send to a press that is to be printed in full-color is set up in CMYK mode, unless specifically told otherwise by the printer. (I’ll cover other types of full-color printing that use RGB in a later post).

2)      You should NOT use CMYK art set up for printing in any document you’re creating to be displayed on an electronic device (PowerPoint slides, web graphics, etc.) If you’ve ever been sent a photo attached to an email that showed up as a little red X that you were unable to view, chances are the photo was in CMYK color, and your monitor or TV couldn’t display it because it was missing the RGB color information it needed to do so. TVs and monitors are as confused by CMYK as much as printing presses are confused by RGB.

3)      CMYK COLORS LOOK DIFFERENT PRINTED ON PAPER THAN WHEN VIEWED ON A COMPUTER SCREEN. When an able computer application automatically converts CMYK art you are viewing to its RGB equivalent in order to display it on your monitor, the colors will look different than they do in print. In some cases, the color variation will be very noticeable (blues and purples translate the poorest from CMYK to RGB colors). In other cases it’s not as noticeable. It is imperative that you PRINT OUT AND PROOF CMYK ARTWORK on a color laser jet or inkjet printer in order to get a better approximation of the colors as they will appear when printed using a CMYK press. DO NOT RELY ON YOUR COMPUTER SCREEN to proof printed color. I should really repeat this as point #4, too, because it is a very important thing to remember. It’s an extremely common mistake people make unknowingly, and then wonder why their printed materials don’t look the way the expect them to look when they get them back from the press.

How to handle CMYK artwork for electronic display

Yes, this paragraph is a repeat of the one from my RGB post, but I’ll say it again: A good designer will ask you how you plan to use the art they are creating for you, and then will deliver you the art in multiple file formats and in multiple color formats that are matched as closely as possible. In this way, they assure that you have the art you need for any application, whether it’s print or electronic so you don’t experience color surprises down the road.

If you have CMYK artwork that you need to display electronically and you don’t have it in RGB format, a knowledgeable designer will be able to convert your CMYK file to RGB for you. Easier than converting from RGB to CMYK, converting from CMYK to RGB can sometimes still require color rebalancing for a “true” color match. The graphic quality of the art you give your designer will also affect the outcome. Higher resolution images generally give better color conversion results.

Continue to the 4th article in this series.

Posted on January 18, 2010 - by Lisa Nalewak

RGB – The Color Format of the Electronic World

This is the 2nd in a series of articles on Graphic Design specifically written for Business Professionals.

RGB color stands for “Red Green Blue”, and RGB color is used specifically for electronic display of graphics and images. All colors generated on TVs and computer screens are a result of the combination of red, blue and green light emitted by electronics inside each device.

A TV screen or computer monitor is made up of thousands of little “bulbs” or pixels that sit very close to each other, and together make up your whole screen. Every pixel has the capacity to be its own color. Every color displayed in each of these pixels is a balance of the intensity of light for each of these three colors as they overlap in the same pixel at the same time. When viewed from a distance, these differently colored pixels make up a whole picture, and allow for variations of color across the entire screen.

When graphic designers create graphics that are meant to be displayed electronically — like for web sites or PowerPoint presentations or for CDs or DVDs — they “set” the colors for the graphics they create as “RGB”. This way, the electronic device displaying the graphic knows what balance of red, green and blue light to use for each pixel that makes up the graphic. In addition, your graphic will display consistently on every RGB device.

RGB colors are defined by using specific values for each color to create all the unique colors of the spectrum. The highest value for one color is 255, which means that color is being displayed at its brightest. The lowest value for one color is 0, which means that color is essentially “turned off”.  By combining different values for each of the three colors, a computer monitor or TV screen essentially mimics the entire visible spectrum.

For example, a pure, bright red color has the RGB value of 255, 0, 0. That means the red value is set at 255, the green value at 0 and the blue value at 0, or R=255, G=0, B=0. A pure bright green has the RGB value of 0, 255, 0. A pure bright blue is 0, 0, 255. Black is 0, 0, 0, or the absence of light. White is 255, 255, 255, or the inclusion of all light (I’m starting to sound like your high school physics teacher, aren’t I?). The higher the color values for each color, the lighter the shade. The lower the color values for each color, the darker the shade.

What does this mean to me?

So what things do you need to keep in mind about RGB color that’ll make your life easier when purchasing design services or artwork, or when you need to use or modify art you already have on file?

1)      The vast majority of machinery used to produce printed materials does not use the RGB color format to define colors. Instead, it uses inks or combinations of inks to approximate the hues of the spectrum. As a result, RGB COLORS DO NOT MATCH THEIR EQUIVALENT PRINTED COLORS. They are two completely different ways of generating colors so the end result is different as well.

2)      You can NOT use art set up for printing (ie. NOT set up in RGB color format), on an electronic device. If you’ve ever been sent a photo attached to an email that showed up as a little red X that you were unable to view, chances are the photo was not set up in RGB color, and your monitor or TV couldn’t display it because it was missing the RGB color information it needed to do so.

When you try to print RGB artwork, or convert RGB artwork to the appropriate color format for printing, you will get a color shift. That means the closest color used in printing for the RGB color you see on a screen will look different from each other when held up side by side. In some cases it’s very different (blues and purples translate the poorest from RGB to print colors). In other cases it’s not as noticeable.

You must be prepared for this color difference. I’ve had many, many customers come to me in the past who were upset with previous artists or printers, because artwork they pulled off their website or out of a PowerPoint presentation did not print out on their LaserJet or on their business cards as the same color that they saw on their screen.

This was not the designer’s fault: the designer created RGB artwork for use on the Website or inside a PowerPoint presentation, not for print. This was not the printers fault: they printed what the client gave them to print, in this case a file that was originally created in RGB to view on a screen. Ultimately, the problem arose because the art was being used in the way for which it was not created. This is why it’s extremely important that you ask your designer to create artwork specifically for the use you intend, just so you can avoid color suprises and conversion pitfalls.

How to handle RGB artwork for print

A good designer will ask you how you plan to use the art they are creating for you, and then will deliver you the art in multiple file formats and in multiple color formats that are matched as closely as possible. In this way, they assure that you have the art you need for any application, whether it’s print or electronic so you don’t experience color surprises down the road.

If you have RGB artwork that you need printed and you don’t have it in another color format specifically set up for print, a knowledgeable designer will be able to convert your RGB file to print color formats for you. How they accomplish this, and how well they accomplish this is based on the type of file you give them, and on the graphic quality of the file. Art that is still in it’s ‘source’ or ‘editable’ form is easiest to work with, and the higher the resolution quality of the artwork, the better the result. The more complex the art, and the poorer the resolution, the harder it is to achieve a good conversion result. If a file is “flattened” (meaning all the art elements are in a single layer inside the artwork and can’t be “lifted” and moved around independently of one another), the lower the quality of the result.

Ultimately, it’s up to your designer to recommend what they believe is the best way to handle an RGB-to-Print color conversion, but they can’t accomplish this until you understand why you need it done and ask that they do it for you.

Continue to the 3rd article in this series.

Posted on January 11, 2010 - by Lisa Nalewak

Introduction to Colors & Production

This is the 1st in a series of articles on Graphic Design specifically written for Business Professionals.

There are multiple methods used to create and display color in the world today, and as a result, there are multiple ways to represent or define color in the various graphic design applications and production methods used to create graphics for these different mediums.

Understanding how computers and the printing industry use and define color is paramount to helping you understand the limitations of graphic production, so you can make educated choices when choosing a particular process for a particular job and get the best result for your buck. It is also helpful in setting realistic expectations, so you are not disappointed by the outcome.

The most common ways of discussing color in the design world are as RGB, CMYK and Spot colors values. RGB color is used for electronic display, on monitors, TVs and inside applications that are used to create content for these mediums. CMYK color is used to create full color printed graphics. Spot color is used to create printed graphics where specific colors must always look exactly the same and where slight color variations are not acceptable, even when printed on different substrates and by different printers and presses. Spot color is most commonly used in printing logos and brand marks, where consistency of presentation is paramount to building a product or company’s image.

In following entries, I will provide an introduction to these three popular color formats and the design/production challenges associated with each.

Continue to 2nd article in this series.

Posted on January 4, 2010 - by Lisa Nalewak

Graphics for Business Professionals

This is the introduction for a series of articles on Graphic Design specifically written for Business Professionals.

Having frolicked on both sides of the design fence (as a consumer of graphic design, web design and printing services and as a provider of those same services), I know there are plenty of opportunities for misunderstandings that can minimize the efficiency of a vendor/client relationship. Most, if not all, of these situations are avoidable as long as each side takes a little bit of time to get to know the world the other lives in.

The goal of my Graphics for Business Professionals article series is to help business people understand the graphic designer’s world a little better. When a business professional is able to clearly articulate their desires and needs to a graphic designer, and when they have a solid understanding of the design process and the realities of creating graphic materials, they are better able to direct designers to achieve specific results. In return, designers are more likely to deliver exactly what the business professional wants — and more quickly, too. It’s a win-win situation.

Each Graphics for Business Professionals entry will discuss a particular design topic and discuss the fundamentals, with special emphasis on those issues most relevant to the business professional. Topics will range from specifics (What is RGB color, for example) to broader discussions (What is good design, anyway?).

Discussion on these topics is highly encouraged. While I may be somewhat wizened in the ways of graphics, my knowledge is limited to my personal experience, and for every topic I discuss, there are two others that people can teach me more about.

I also encourage readers to contact me with suggestions for topics you’d like to see included. This is, after all, a tool to help YOU do your job better, and I’m happy to delve into the graphics world to cover topics of common interest. (It doesn’t hurt that I like to talk either, so keep the ideas coming!)

Thanks for stopping by.

Go to 1st article in this series.