Key printing terms explained simply

The Technical jargon in the printing industry can sometimes leave you feeling rather at a loss. Unless you’ve had formal training in graphic design or work as a printer, you’re bound to find yourself with a few question marks in your head when faced with various technical terms. Take, for example, the Ordering Business cards or creating flyers for the newly established company without the help of a graphic designer.
To help you find your way around the Find your way more easily through the jungle of technical termsIn this blog post, we’ve compiled the most important ones and explained them briefly and concisely for you.

What are CMYK and RGB?

These two abbreviations describe Colour spaces we encounter in everyday life. But before we focus on describing these two, let’s first look at the actual Definition of colour Colour: This is produced by light and is perceived individually by each of us. We distinguish between so-called light colours and body colours. The Light colours originate directly from a self-luminous light source. Body colours, on the other hand, are a visual perception of colour reflected by the surfaces of various objects.

RGB stands for the primary colours red, green and blue, which are primary colours. By mixing them together, it is theoretically possible to produce up to 16 million shades. Incidentally, the combination of these three primary colours results in white and is known as additive colour mixing Described. However, there is a catch with light colours: they cannot be used for printing. If we think back to school, where we used to mix the primary colours together with watercolours in art lessons, we’ve all experienced the following effect: the more colours we stirred together with our brushes, the darker the colour became. The same applies to printing, so a different solution is needed. Where do we see RGB colour spaces in everyday life? The answer to this question is right before your eyes as you read these lines: RGB colours can be found on our screens at the PC, smartphone or tablet, or even on digital photos. If you were to zoom in on a section of the screen in front of you, you would see that everything is divided into small red, green and blue dots.

The CMYK colour model is used for printing, which is for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black stands for. But, the attentive reader may well ask, what does the letter ‘K’ stand for? The fact is that, in theory, when the three colours cyan, magenta and yellow are mixed together, they produce black. However, in print, this is not rich enough for the human eye, so a so-called key factor ‘K’ is added to enhance the contrast. During printing, the colours are usually applied one after the other onto white paper, resulting in the various shades. Unlike RGB, CMYK is a subtractive colour mixing. By adding more colour, the reflected light is reduced

drucks.ch tip:

The CMYK colour space is smaller than the RGB colour space. This means that fewer colours can be reproduced in print than are displayed on screen. It is therefore important to always convert images to CMYK beforehand, as this allows you to ‘simulate’ the result on paper and make adjustments to the appearance yourself (such as increasing saturation or contrast, etc.).

What is an ‘Überfüller’?

The ‘Überfüller’ refers to the Bleed allowance at the edge of a printed product. This prevents the unwanted cropping of a graphic that extends to the edge of the paper. In practice, this means that the graphic must extend at least 2mm beyond the crop marks to avoid a ‘white flash’ at the edges.

What are spot colours & process colours??

The Most well-known colour systems, both of which can do the same thing in their own way, are the HKS or Pantone colours. The advantage of a spot colour is its colour consistency, as it is not subject to fluctuations. They are particularly important in the field of corporate branding, for instance when it comes to the colour accuracy of a logo. The colour gamut for spot colours is much wider than that of CMYK, as they are based on 9 (HKS) or 14/18 (Pantone, Pantone Plus) primary colours, which are mixed together.