About color printing
Additive color Computer monitors work with energized phosphors that glow red, green, or blue on the face of a picture tube. If accurate color reproduction is important to you, your monitor should be calibrated on a regular basis. Calibration adjusts and corrects the gamma, white and black points, and color balance of the monitor. Monitors display color with impressive accuracy, but they can never match the printed page perfectly because of the physics of color involved. Monitors display additive color space RGB, and printing devices use CMYK, which is subtractive color space.
Subtractive color Printing is based on the subtractive color process. Cyan, magenta, and yellow dry ink/toner is placed on white reflective paper. Each color then absorbs, or subtracts, its opposing counterpart from the reflected white light. This process controls the amount of red, green, and blue light that is reflected from the white paper. The CMYK colors are printed as layers of halftone dots in various sizes and at various angles to create the illusion of different colors. The varying dot sizes create an effect similar to the varying intensities of the red, green and blue phosphors of a monitor.
Media The paper on which the image has printed significantly affects color reproduction. Paper reflects unabsorbed light back to the eye of the viewer. Therefore, the more reflective the surface of the paper, the wider the range of colors that can be produced.
Refer to the Color Materials Usage Guide included in your Customer Documentation package for more information on how paper influences image quality.
Color servers Once a file is ready to print, it is sent to a color server to be processed for output. Color servers typically offer a wide range of functionality, including electronic collation, processing while printing, color management, automatic trapping, and calibration.
Refer to your color server User Documentation for more information on the functionality of your unit.
DocuColor 5252 Operator Manual |
