CMYK

I hope everyone had a safe and educational New Years!  2012 is going to be a great year, I can feel it in my bones.  The boys down in the Osteology Department say that I should have that checked out.

 During the holiday season I actually got my first tattoo.  When I came back to work at the Fizmont Auxiliary Imaging Division today, I passed Dr Geo in the hall and he asked me what my tattoo stood for.  I replied that they were C M Y K.  Leo said, and I quote, "OK, soooo...  the C stands for Carbon, and the K stands for Potassium, but what are the 'M' and 'Y' for?"  Of course, Leo was referring to the periodic table of elements.  What I was actually referring to was the four process printing colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (the key color is black).

My jobs, both teaching at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and drawing here at the Institute, revolve around printing.  These four little colors are indispensable to the book making and printing process.  When you see green on a printed page, it's actually made by printing very small dots of Cyan next to small dots of Yellow.  Here's an example:

You can see that by varying the size / combination of the different process colors, you are able to obtain a wide variety of colors!  Give it a try!  Go grab a magazine and a magnifying glass and I guarantee you'll see the dot patterns of the four process colors.

This is an interesting graph that shows all of the different colors that are possible through different printing and image modes.  Notice that even between ALL these different methods, there are still colors that can't be reproduced.  I think that's extremely cool.