RGB and CMYK

RGB and CMYK -


RGB stands for -

RED,
GREEN and
Blue.

This is the standard format for all black monitors . web images , projections and most digital photography.

 In order to achieve the black colour all of the 3 colours should be set to 0(no light emitting) settings so they wont emit any lightning at all(black monitor).

In order to obtain a white image one should add more light to them, and in order to do this one should set the three colours settings to 255.

The total colours that one can obtain with RGB is 16,777,216 !



CMYK -

CMYK stands for -

        Cyan
        Magenta
       Yellow and
Black.

CMYK is used for printing and since printer paper is white , one should add more ink to obtain the black colour. Percentage is used to set the settings for CMYK. To print in white , obviously all settings must be set at 0% and this will use no ink at all.

To obtain the black colour there is more than one option. One can simply set the Cyan,Magenta and yellow to 0 % and the black to 100% and this will use only the black ink. This is mostly used to print crystal clear text. The other option is to use all other three colours - Cyan,Magenta and yellow and set them at 100% to obtain the black colour from these three , while the black is set to 0%. In this case the black colour is 'FAKE' as it is produced from the three colours. This is not suggested tho because it will use a lot of ink and will take time for the ink to dry.

CMYK can only produce around 60% to 70% of the colours that one can make in RGB.


When working with RGB and one is about to print one should always convert it to CMYK so to confirm the colours for printing as these will defer from what one is seeing on screen to on paper.


The image below is an example of an image designed in RGB and converted to CMYK and another design that is designed in CMYK.