Basic process: original manuscript - color separation draft - film production - plate making - printing

1) Original manuscript: the manuscript we want to print

We know that printing usually The concept of "four-color printing" is mentioned because the colors in printed matter are composed of four colors: C, M, Y, and K.

Usually, the printed matter we come into contact with is based on four-color printing. Made of overprinting

2) Color separation: Color separation is a professional term in printing, which refers to the decomposition of various colors on the original into the four primary colors of yellow, magenta, cyan and black; in In computer printing design or graphic design image software, color separation work is to convert the color mode of scanned images or images from other sources into CMYK mode

In Photoshop, the color separation operation is actually very simple: just need Just convert the image color mode from RGB mode or Lab mode to CMYK mode

In this way, the color of the image is represented by the color material (ink), with 4 color channels

< p>When the image is output to the film, dots will be generated according to the color channel data, and divided into four color-separated films of yellow, magenta, cyan and black

3) Film: Film is a very critical Things are actually the same as the negatives we use for photography

Four colors require four films, and the four films correspond to the following: C, M, Y, K

The films that come out are all black and white. When printing, it’s just a matter of choosing which color and which ink to use for printing.

4) Plate making: After the film is finished, we can directly take a picture in CMYK mode. (The bitmap image format commonly used in printing is tif) To output the film directly, you do not need to separate each color. This is what the computer does. We can see in photoshop that a CMYK picture (usually Most of the pictures we encounter are in RGB mode, which can be converted to CMYK before viewing). In the channel panel, you can see that there are four channels representing four colors respectively.

The pictures are produced using an image-setter Yes, there is special software, and the operation is relatively not difficult

Film is out

Plate making is very easy to understand. You can learn the operation of related equipment in practice.

5) Printing: Printing is divided into different types such as offset printing, gravure printing, letterpress printing, screen printing, etc. Due to different printing principles, there will be certain differences in the color separation and film production, for example For example, in screen printing, the direction of the film should be reversed

(just like a seal)

You can learn the specific reasons in practice