Real World Print Production with Adobe Creative Suite Applications

Limitations of CMYK

While an extensive range of colors can be rendered with various combinations of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink, there’s still a limit to what CMYK can create. The human eye can see a huge range of colors—larger than even the large gamut of a computer monitor. But the total gamut of the process inks is considerably smaller than the human eye can see, or even the range that the monitor can display. Consequently, images that are quite vibrant on your monitor may print disappointingly dull. It’s not because your print service provider is incompetent. It’s because of the limitations of the printing-ink spectrum. In Figure 2.11, the large, colorful toe is an approximation of the range of colors perceived by the human eye. ...