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To colour print your digital files, you have to supply the graphics and images in the right colour mode. Most of the software programmes will allow you to work on RGB colour mode or CMYK colour mode. RGB colours or Red-Green-Blue colours are known as the primary colours of the light. This colour combination is represented on your tv or computer monitors. The digital cameras and scanners also produce images using Red-Green-Blue colour combinations. Red-Green-Blue colour mode should be used when taking photos that need to be viewed on a monitor, or by emails or CD.

All the colours of the light spectrum are created from the primary colours, but monitors can display only a limited colour range from the visible spectrum. Light is emitted by the monitors, and the ink recognizes only a particular wavelength of colours. The three primary colours are combined to create white colour. If all three primary colours are absent, the light will show as black. By combining various intensities of RGB colours, each mixture produces various colours. The monitor of a television or a computer consists of small units called pixels. Every pixel contains three units of light, and each unit represents red, green and blue.

You can not see individual pixels with the naked eye as they are so tiny. But each pixel is developed by applying correct values of RGB, as without the proper values of the colour units, you will not see anything on the monitor. The values of RGB colours are calculated mainly by three methods. The first method is to set them with the help of different numeric values. The numeric values used for this purpose are the values from 0 to 255, and this is the best method of the three.

The second method is the use of hexadecimal notations. This method is mainly used for HTML and other languages of the computer. These notations follow a logical pattern. The hexadecimal notation consists of six characters, and these characters are divided into three. The first pair represents the red, the second pair green and the third pair as blue. Each pair is represented by a hexadecimal number (0-9) and the letters (A-F). The third method is the percentage in which a certain percentage represents each colour. The programme translates these percentages into suitable values ranges from 0-255.

CMYK colours or Cyan-Magenta-Yellow colours are subtractive colours, whereas RGB colours are additive colours. Additive colours refer to light, whereas subtractive colours refer to inks, paint or pigment. CMYK mode is used for printing as all kind of printers use subtractive colours to result in different colours. When three additive colours are combined, the combination will produce white colour. But when three subtractive colours are combined, the combination produces black colour. This difference results in a wide diversity between the print and the screen display. Additive colour throws light from the monitor, and if more light is projected from an independent pixel, it will be closer to the pure light. Regarding printer inks, they will absorb light and reflects only the wavelengths of light that is linked with the colour of the ink.

The inks of the printer are subtracting the non-essential wavelengths from the light that falls on the ink. The remaining light will return to our eyes, providing the impression of other colours. If you are combining more colours, then more light will be absorbed by the ink and a lesser amount of light will be reflected to the eye, which results in darker colour. Black ink produced by the CMYK colours is not the deep black. You will have to add some black ink to get the best results for receiving true black. To receive a darker variety of a colour, you have to add black in CMYK mode.

And how about the lighter shade of colours? Because white ink cannot be created using CMYK colours, you need to work under the idea that you are printing the colours onto white paper. As tiny dots of inks are used to print images the inks are used in lower percentage to produce lighter shades so that more white colour is seen among the dots. The values of CMYK colours are calculated with the help of four different percentages. The values of each percentage should be between 0 and 100 so that the total percentage of the ink values can be up to 400%. But when the total percentage does reach 400%, the ink takes more time to dry. Therefore, the total percentage of the ink shouldn’t be more than 300% in CMYK mode.

Both the colour modes have limitations. The images developed using RGB mode cannot be converted smoothly into CMYK mode due to the brightness of RGB colours. Similarly, CMYK colours can not be converted to RGB mode because the sharp look of RGB colours is missing in CMYK mode online. This is the reason why RGB colours are used in monitors and CMYK colours are used in printers.

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