What is the difference between spot colour and full colour?

Thursday, 15 January 2009 11:10

Basically, full colour is printed using four inks: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Spot colours are printed from pre mixed inks. Most printers use the Pantone mixing system to produce these colours. Spot colours can be emulated in full colour printing. However, it should be noted that they can never be as accurate as the Pantone colour.

The other important point is that very small text, artwork, etc., in logos that is designed using a spot colour can look very poor when printed in full colour (CMYK) as any small misalignment of printing plates or stretching of paper, could result in a relatively poor reproduction.

It is not unusual to print jobs in five or six colours, cmyk plus the spot colour(s). Also please be

Written by Brendan Dooley You are reading What is the difference between spot colour and full colour? articles