Process Color Manual book

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Posted By
uw_badgers
Oct 24, 2005
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I just bought this book "Process Color Manual – 24,000 CMYK Combinations", which is a reference book of CMYK swatches. I’m sending something to a professional printer, and want the colors to be close to exact.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811827577/103-9979391-6600 649

Anyways, I checked out a few colors that I know what they’re supposed to look like. I looked up the 2-color combination of 100% cyan, 100% yellow, and the swatch looked very green. The 100% magenta, 100% yellow swatch looked very red. But the 100% cyan and 100% magenta swatch did not look blue, it looked like a darker purple. Why is that? Shouldn’t 100% cyan and 100% magenta be a pure blue?
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Mike Russell
Oct 24, 2005
wrote in message >I just bought this book "Process Color Manual – 24,000 CMYK
Combinations", which is a reference book of CMYK swatches. I’m sending something to a professional printer, and want the colors to be close to exact.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811827577/103-9979391-6600 649
Anyways, I checked out a few colors that I know what they’re supposed to look like. I looked up the 2-color combination of 100% cyan, 100% yellow, and the swatch looked very green. The 100% magenta, 100% yellow swatch looked very red. But the 100% cyan and 100% magenta swatch did not look blue, it looked like a darker purple. Why is that? Shouldn’t 100% cyan and 100% magenta be a pure blue?

Should be, but isn’t. Cyan is a weaker ink than magenta. This is why blue sucks in CMYK, and why you are observing the shift toward purple.

This begs the question of what physical and optical principles are at work to make this the case. I have no idea. Apparently it is difficult, or impossible, to make a high quality cyan dye that absorbs only red. If it were possible, then we would see monographs made with this dye. —
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
I
iehsmith
Oct 24, 2005
On 10/24/05 5:09 PM, Mike Russell uttered:

wrote in message >I just bought this book "Process Color Manual – 24,000 CMYK
Combinations", which is a reference book of CMYK swatches. I’m sending something to a professional printer, and want the colors to be close to exact.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811827577/103-9979391-6600 649
Anyways, I checked out a few colors that I know what they’re supposed to look like. I looked up the 2-color combination of 100% cyan, 100% yellow, and the swatch looked very green. The 100% magenta, 100% yellow swatch looked very red. But the 100% cyan and 100% magenta swatch did not look blue, it looked like a darker purple. Why is that? Shouldn’t 100% cyan and 100% magenta be a pure blue?

Should be, but isn’t. Cyan is a weaker ink than magenta. This is why blue sucks in CMYK, and why you are observing the shift toward purple.
This begs the question of what physical and optical principles are at work to make this the case. I have no idea. Apparently it is difficult, or impossible, to make a high quality cyan dye that absorbs only red. If it were possible, then we would see monographs made with this dye. —

I’m curious. I’m not familiar with the book. Reading the description: "Process Color Manual provides an astounding 24,000 colors that match from computer display to printed page." I’m dubious. Does the book (circa 2000) address calibration at all?

inez
T
Tacit
Oct 25, 2005
In article ,
wrote:

Anyways, I checked out a few colors that I know what they’re supposed to look like. I looked up the 2-color combination of 100% cyan, 100% yellow, and the swatch looked very green. The 100% magenta, 100% yellow swatch looked very red. But the 100% cyan and 100% magenta swatch did not look blue, it looked like a darker purple. Why is that? Shouldn’t 100% cyan and 100% magenta be a pure blue?

No. You can not get pure blue in CMYK; it’s not possible.

Bright, saturated blues are outside the CMYK gamut. Nothing you can do about that; sorry!

—
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