Neverside

3 or 4 color printing

Just a bit of a disclaimer, most of the graphics that I make/made are created to be used on screen either video/web.

I was wondering if anyone could explain what 3 color or 4 color printing exactly means, and how to go about preparing graphics for this type of output.

I have been asked to create a 17x11 poster using 3 color printing.

Any hints, tips, or web links would be appreciated.

Laters

Not quite sure, but I think I know...

3 and 4 color printing refer to the mode your image is in on the computer. The RGB mode is 3 colors, because all data is in the format of Red, Green, or Blue. The 4 color mode is CMYK, which use Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. I believe that is what you are asking. Most consumer printers are configured for CMYK printout.

To change modes, simply go to Image>Mode, and choose your mode. Mode conversions can change some colors in your image. I'm not sure how to remedy that.

Now that I think about it, that's prolly why my RGB images come out off colored...

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Pierce

Thanx a lot for the info....

It all makes sense..

Pierce, your answer is close, but not quite. CMYK is 4 color process printing, but RGB is never used for printing. RGB are the colors of light that, when combined, create white light, and is therefore only used for onscreen display. You can not combine those inks to create different colors.

When you print out an image from Photoshop that is in RGB, the printer simply takes it's CMYK approximation of those colors, and prints them out. That's why your RGB images come out off colored.

flmmkr, the answer your looking for is simply how many colors of inks they can use. All sorts of documents are created using 1, 2, 3, 4, or more colors. Usually, when a document is 1, 2 or 3 colors, it uses what is called "spot" colors, which are not your standard Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, or Black.

When you are creating graphics for a 3 color layout, you are going to use a lot of duotone and tritone images. You can pick any 3 colors you want, but you will not be able to use full color images in your printing, because no printer prints using Red, Green and Blue inks.

I can't think of any links off hand for creating that kind of 3 color printing, but you may want to check these out:
www.quark.com <- look for some tutorials or something.
http://www.suzannecooper.com/classroom/colortheory.html <- go there for help with picking out colors.

If you need any more information, let me know. Go to your local bookstore and ask for books on the printing process, you'll probably go farther then.

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www.balzasteel.com

I figured as much. Thanks for the heads up, 80386.

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Pierce