Color
Bright and inks
Describe a color often seems random and complicated. To simplify and standardize this task, there are three main processes that allow efficient management of colors: RGB, CMYK and Spot Colors. But beware, the RGB spectrum is a bright and CMYK and Spot Colors are inks!
RGB
To reproduce the spectrum of light (colors of nature) we decompose them into three basic colors: Red, Green and Blue (RGB). These are the colors of the rainbow sky. RGB is used on media such as the screen of your TV or your computer. The colors of this page are RGB.
CMYK
To reproduce all the colors, the printer use a method called Quadri. This method mix four inks: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK). Its spectrum is smaller than RGB, so it is important to convert documents into CMYK before printing.
Spot Colors
To reproduce a particular color (example for a logo) Spot Colors are used. These are pigment inks that reproduce accurate color but do not mix. To choose a Spot Colors, catalogs are used. The most famous catalog is certainly the Pantone®.
example of green RGB
R: 16,5% | G: 56,9% | B: 40,4%
example of green CMYK
C: 100% | M: 0% | Y: 69% | K: 15%
example of green Pantone®
Pantone®: 340 CV