four-colour process printing

The four-colour process is a method of color printing that uses four inks: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). Each of these inks is printed from a separate plate. When these inks are printed on top of each other in the correct order and with precise registration, they can reproduce a wide range of colors and shades.1234

The cyan ink absorbs red light, magenta absorbs green light, and yellow absorbs blue light. By combining these inks, other colors are created. For example, combining yellow and magenta inks produces red. Black ink is often added to enhance contrast and detail, as achieving a true black by combining only the three primary colors can be difficult due to the nature of printing inks. This process typically involves breaking down the original image into dots, known as the halftone process, to render tonal gradations.3145