OUGD504- Colour Research

Subtractive colour works on the basis of reflected light. Rather than pushing more light out, the way a particular pigment reflects different wavelengths of light determines its apparent colour to the human eye.

Subtractive colour has three primary colours - Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow (CMY)

The pigments we have available to use don't fully absorb light (preventing reflected colour wavelengths), so we have to add a fourth compensating pigment to account for this limitation.

We call this "Key", hence CMYK, but essentially it's black. Without this additional pigment, the closest to black we'd be able to render in print would be a muddy brown.

01. Hue
This is the position on the colour wheel, and represents the base colour itself.

02. Saturation

This is a representation of how saturated (or rich) a colour is. Low saturation results in less overall colour, eventually becoming a shade of grey when fully desaturated.

03. Brightness

This is how bright a colour is, typically expressed as a percentage between 0 and 100%. A yellow at 0% brightness will be black, while the same yellow hue and saturation at 100% brightness will be the full yellow colour.

Clashing/Complementary Colours

Two colours from different segments of the colour wheel arecontrasting colours. 

For example, red is from the warm half of the colour wheel and blue is from the cool half. They are contrasting colours.

You may also see these opposite colours referred to as complementary colours which generally refers to each of a pair of colours that are directly are almost directly opposite each other on the colour wheel, such as purple and yellow.
Colours that are directly opposite from one another are said to clash -- although this clashing or high contrast is not necessarily a bad thing

How to colour-match your print projects....

Spot colours

Basically, an ink colour is ready-mixed to produce a particular colour

The more spot colours used, the more film and plates are needed, hence the increased costs.

To keep costs down it's possible to create tints of a spot colour without needing extra film or plates.

Some spot colours lend themselves perfectly to being reproduced using the 4 colour process, whereas others can cause slight problems in that the match is not perfect.

PANTONE

In 1963, Lawrence Herbert, Pantone's founder, created an innovative system for identifying, matching and communicating colours to solve the problems associated with producing accurate colour matches in the graphic arts community. His insight that the spectrum is seen and interpreted differently by each individual led to the innovation of the:

PANTONE® MATCHING SYSTEM®, a book of standardised colour in fan format.

Today, the PANTONE Name is known worldwide as the standard language for accurate colour communication, from designer to manufacturer to retailer to customer, across a variety of industries.

Graphic Arts – Printing, Publishing & Packaging

The PANTONE PLUS SERIES for multimedia graphics – today’s version of the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM – is the definitive international reference for selecting, specifying, matching and controlling ink colours. 

The PANTONE FORMULA GUIDE, a two-guide set consisting of 1,677solid PANTONE Colours on coated and uncoated stock, shows corresponding printing ink formulas for each colour.

The digitally created PANTONE CMYK Guides provide a comprehensive palette of 2,868 colours achievable in four-colour process printing. 

The PANTONE COLOUR BRIDGE® GUIDES coated and uncoated compare solid PANTONE Colours to their closest possible match in CMYK four-colour process that can be achieved on a computer monitor, output device or printing press. 

Other PANTONE Colour Reference Guides for the graphic arts include METALLICS, PREMIUM METALLICS, PASTELS and NEONS.