RGB verses CMYK Colours
Posted in Uncategorized on 08/23/2011 08:44 pm by Arrrr !!!For the colour printing of your digital files, you have to supply the graphics and images in the optimum colour mode. Most of the software programs will allow you to work on RGB colour or CMYK colour mode. RGB colours or Red-Green-Blue colours are known as the primary colours of the light. This colour combination is represented on your tv or computer monitors. The digital cameras and scanners also create images using Red-Green-Blue colour combinations. Red-Green-Blue colour mode ought to be in use while taking photos that are to be seen on a monitor, or by emails or CD.
All colours of the light spectrum are formed from the primary colours, but monitors can display only limited colour range from the spectrum able to be seen. Light is sent from the monitors, and the ink recognizes only a certain wavelength of colours. All three primary colours are combined together to produce white colour. If the three primary colours are absent, then the light will appear as black. By combining a variety of intensities of RGB colours, each mixture produces differing colours. A monitor of a tv or a computer is made of small units known as pixels. Every pixel contains three units of light, and each unit represents red, green and blue.
We can not see the individual pixels with the naked eye because they are so small. Each pixel is created by the application of correct values of RGB, and without the proper values of the colour units, you will not see any image on the screen. The values of RGB colours are calculated mainly by three methods. The first method is to set them with the help of different numeric values. The numeric values used for this purpose are the values from 0 to 255, and this is the superior method of the three.
The second method is by using hexadecimal notations. This method is mainly used for HTML and other languages of the computer. These notations follow a logical pattern. The hexadecimal notation consists of six characters, and these characters are divided into three. The first pair represents the red, the second pair green and the third pair as blue. Each pair is represented by a hexadecimal number (0-9) and the letters (A-F). The third method is the percentage in which a certain percentage represents each colour. The program translates these percentages into suitable values ranges from 0-255.
CMYK colours or Cyan-Magenta-Yellow colours are subtractive colours, whereas RGB colours are additive colours. Additive colours refer to light, whereas subtractive colours refer to inks, paint or pigment. CMYK mode is used for printing as all kind of printers use subtractive colours to produce different colours. When three additive colours are combined, the combination will produce white colour. But when three subtractive colours are combined, the combination produces black. This difference creates a great diversity between the print and the monitor display. Additive colour projects light from the monitor, and if more light is projected from a specific pixel, it will be closer to the pure light. In the case of printer inks, they absorb light and reflects only the wavelengths of light that is associated with the colour of the ink.
The inks of the printer take away the non-essential wavelengths from the light that falls on the ink. The remaining light will return to the eye, providing the impression of a variety of colours. If you are combining more colours, then more light will be absorbed by the ink and a lesser amount of light will get reflected to the eye, which results in darker colour. Black ink produced by the CMYK colours isn’t a strong black. So you need to add some black ink to get the best results for printing true black. To get a stronger tone of a colour, you need to add black in CMYK mode.
And how about the lighter shade of colours? Because white ink cannot be created using CMYK colours, you have to work with the idea that you are printing colour onto white paper. Since small dots of inks are used to print images the inks are used in a lower percentage to receive lighter shades so that more white colour is visible among the dots. The values of CMYK colours are calculated with the help of four different percentages. The values of each percentage should be between 0 and 100 so that the total percentage of the ink values can be up to 400%. But when the total percentage does reach 400%, the ink will take more time to dry. Therefore, the total percentage of ink shouldn’t be more than 300% in CMYK mode.
Both colour modes have their own limitations. The images created using RGB mode cannot be converted smoothly into CMYK mode due to the brightness of RGB colours. Similarly, CMYK colours can not be translated to RGB mode as the sharp look of RGB colours is missing in CMYK mode online. This is the reason why RGB colours are used in monitors and CMYK colours are used in printers.
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