As a special color mixing technique, CMYK is applied primarily in the field of offset printing, and when it is necessary to print certain content on paper or plastics, fabrics, metal and other materials used in this case. Namely, among printers, the application of such a color mixing system known as full color which also greatly speaks of the quality of the print achieved by its application.
The notion of this term is actually an abbreviation made up of the initial letters of the name for each individual color used in this case, where C represents Cyan, or turquoise, while M is the initial letter of the word Magenta. The letter Y is taken from a word that indicates yellow, while K is shortened from the word Key, which in this term represents black. We emphasize that this is a so-called subtractive method of mixing colors, considering that it is not possible to get white if all of them are mixed because white is obtained exclusively by the subtraction process. It is certainly very important to emphasize here that CMYK color mixing technique is only applicable when printing must be done on a white background. So, generally and theoretically speaking, when we mix turquoise, magenta and yellow, we will get black, but it is certainly added to this principle of color mixing with the aim of obtaining much more intense tones of black, and in order for the quality of the print to be much better and more permanent.
In some cases, the specific, fifth color that is named Pantone is also added in offset printing and it is defined according to a special scale.
When yellow and magenta are mixed in the same ratio, they will get red, and by mixing yellow and cyan, also in the same amount, we will get green. However, if we need green to be darker then it will be necessary to add black in a precisely defined percentage, which is actually the task of those experts who are in charge of printing in a specific case.
Although the CMYK color mixing system is most often used in offset printing, it certainly has application in digital printing, but also within screen printing, and, of course, this technique is most often used in color photocopying and printing different contents, either for personal or business purposes.
This mode of printing provides the ability to produce a high-quality color print of some drawings or photographs, even texts, and other contents, and is usually applied when printing promotional materials, so with the application of CMYK we obtain excellently printed posters, brochures and catalogs, or magazines, books and other contents requiring high quality color printing.