Screen E-Book (.PDF) - MacDermid Autotype

What’s the best order to print your fourcolours? This is a question that has beenaround for years and there’s been no definitiveanswer. As a practical project we decidedto revisit the question to see if a cleareranswer would emerge. What we found is thatsubjective opinion left the question open, butthat science allowed us to come up with abetter answer.BackgroundThe printing literature is full of contradictoryreports on the best sequence forprinting CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow andBlack). Many of them are said to be scientificreports, but the fact that they so oftencontradict each other makes it hard for realprinters to know what is best for them andtheir customers. Even more confusingly,ISO Standards for colour printing refer tothem as “CMYK standards” which might implythat CMYK is the standard order, eventhough no standard order is mandated.We all know that the key issue is one of“dot-on-dot” gain which can readily be understoodwith the following diagrams.With a small dot, just after the squeegee has passed, there is amodest amount of ink ready to be printed.52