One of the questions we need to ask before we quote an imprint on most of our items is, “Will it be a spot color imprint (and how many colors) or a four color process imprint?” Unfortunately, to many of our customers, that’s like asking “Τους οποίους είναι η αποστολή μας να εκμεταλλευτούμε το άλογο?“ It would definitely be easier to skip it, but because the pricing tends to be very different and not all items can be printed in four color process, we do need to get the answer to give you an accurate quote.
Our short explanation is usually that if the imprint is an specific, individual solid color, it would be considered a spot color. If the image is a photograph (or similar) or contains areas of fading or blended colors it will require four color process (sometimes also referred to as “full color printing”. Usually that’s good enough to get a quote for you. But I thought I’d take this opportunity to give you a (slightly) longer explanation.
A spot color image is printed with one ink. The ink is mixed to your specified color before it’s applied to the press and the items go through the press one time. Each of our suppliers keeps a certain number of popular PMS ink colors pre-mixed and ready to use, resulting in standard imprint colors available on any given product. If we need to match a specific non-standard color, there’s often a charge for the mixing process. Your custom ink will need to be recreated for each order which is why that charge is applied every order. Spot color inks appear as a solid color when you look closely after printing. They’re also typically less expensive to produce, have a smaller range of colors possible, but can be brighter and more vibrant than process colors.
Process colors are printed with four passes through the printer. Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Keyline (black) inks are each applied to the item, one at a time. The varying amounts of each of the four colors in any given location is what provides the huge huge variety of colors and blends possible with full color printing. Photographs, blends and fades can be produced easily. If you magnify the results of a CMYK imprint, you’ll see a myriad of small dots of the individual ink colors. A really astonishing range of colors and effects can be achieved with these four inks.
Hopefully that demystifies the terminology. If you need help demystifying Greek, I really can’t help you much. But, the first commenter to respond with the correct translation of the question in the first paragraph gets a small box of truffles in the mail!
