Full color printing is the technique of printing documents and photos in the entire range of colors. This technology is very advanced now. The techniques employed these days are very sophisticated and allow us to produce copies which are as good as the original document.
The underlying principle of color reproduction incorporates the theory of 3 color vision that takes in consideration the manner in which the human eyes see the colors. White light is made of three primary colors, red, green and blue, which is usually called RGB by the people in the printing industry. You should understand that these three primary colors, when added together, give us white light. That’s why RGB colors are known as additive primaries. Fundamentally, that’s the idea at the back of full color printing.
The method of separating the colors is akin to the method of seeing. Any given image is viewed with three filters, and each of those corresponds to additive primaries. It implies that the human eye sees the colors in layers. While distinguishing the colors, the layers are separate, yet together at the same time.
The technique of full color printing is similar to photography. A red filter or special lens is kept on the camera to produce a negative of the entire red light. By making a positive print, green and blue areas are left out. This process makes the color cyan. Likewise, a green filter would produce a positive of the rest of the additive colors, meaning blue and red. This way we get the magenta color. By using a blue filter, green and red are left out to create a yellow positive.
Three colors that get created during the process of full color printing are known as subtractive primaries, as each corresponds to two additive primaries. The presses employed for color printing make use of colored inks, which do the job of filters. The filters take away the component of white light and hit the picture on paper for producing other colors. The inks meant for printing, being transparent, allow light to go through and reflect from the paper base.
By combining all three subtractive primaries, the reproduction of the given item that we get is blurred. This is due to the pigmentation of inks. To eliminate this limitation, a fourth, black color, is included in the mix. This puts in contrast and shadow in the image, thus eliminating the blurriness.
As an increasing number of publishers opt for full color printing, there continues to be a corresponding increase in their readership. In fact, studies by the National Advertising Association reveal that increase to be forty percent or even more.