CMYK is a practical application of the CMY colour models in which black is used alongside the three primary colours (cyan, magenta and yellow) to enable digital printers to produce darker and denser tones.
- CMYK refers to the four ink plates used in some colour printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and ‘key’ (black).
- The CMYK model works by overlaying colours that partially or entirely mask the background colour (usually white). The ink reduces the light that would otherwise be reflected.
- CMY and CMYK are called subtractive colour models because the inks “subtract” the colours red, green and blue from white light.
- Remember that when an observer looks at an image printed using CMYK inks, they are looking at the light that has first fallen on and then been reflected off the surface they have been applied to.
- When incident light contains all the wavelengths of the visible spectrum (white light) is reflected from areas of the image that have no ink on them an observer sees white highlights in the images.
- When white light is reflected from areas of the image that have cyan ink on them the observer sees red.
- When white light is reflected from areas of the image that have magenta ink on them the observer sees green.
- When white light is reflected from areas of the image that have yellow ink on them the observer sees blue.
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