COLOUR
So what is colour? The simple answer is RGB is for anything digital or on a screen, and CMYK and PMS (spot) are for print. RGB colours are additive and are created from light. When combined, red and green light rays produce yellow, blue and green produce cyan, red and blue produce magenta
CMYK
These make up the standard 4 colour process used for printing in full colour. All colours when printed from CMYK are made from combining these colours together. All posters, Magazines and leaflets are generally printed using CMYK sometimes with the addition of one to two spot/special colours.
RGB
Red, green and blue are the 3 colours that are used by monitors to display images. Most of the images we supply to you will be saved as RGB as most Microsoft programs do not like CMYK images. However, RGB images a no good for litho print and need to be converted to CMYK before printing. That is why we include this in the file name so the printers no the image is still in RGB.
SPOT
Refers to solid colours such as Pantone colour matching system, these are mostly used in addition to CMYK e.g. Printing gold, silver or when a specific colour is required. Because the colour you lay down is the actual ink colour, the colours are richer, cleaner and more vibrant. This make them perfect for Branding, packaging and one- or two-colour jobs. Pantone colours can be Coated (C) or Uncoated (U) to match the paper stock.
HEX
Hex codes are ways of representing colors in a format that can be understood by computers. Mainly used for websites and eshots etc. eg. #3a297c