You may wonder why colors are grouped into different modes. There are primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors, etc. If you are not familiar with the family of colors, here is one way of understanding how they are grouped and how they are used.

The most common color groups are the RGB, HSB (Hue, Saturation and Brightness), CMYK and CIE L*A*B. Vector and bitmap graphics are always associated with the RGB and CMYK, so we must familiarize ourselves with these modes.

CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The letter K was taken from the last letter of the color. The first letter was not used because there are other colors that start with the letter b. in this way, confusion of the colors will be eliminated.

CMYK colors are the inks used in the printing process to produce full-color photographs and designs. In the principle of graphics design, these colors are called subtractive colors. When you combine two of any of the first three colors (cyan, magenta and yellow), it will produce the three primary colors (red, green and blue), called additive colors. In other words, CMY is the product of combining RGB and RGB is the product of combining CMY. When the CMY colors are mixed you will have black. But there are still other colors produced from CMYK.

Graphics files are best printed in the CMYK mode. CMYK is referred to as the standard color model, or the four process color, used in offset printing.

Why do we use CMYK color model? We use this type of mode because it produces the greatest number of printable colors. But it is not applicable to all types of printing, particularly when only a single color is needed and when the spot inks, such as metallic silver and gold, are used.

All display devices, such as your computer monitor, use the RGB (red, green, and blue) mode. CMYK is based on printing and ink absorbing into paper. Before you can have your graphics printed in CMYK mode, you must first convert the RGB colors into CMYK colors. This is done through color matching. Color matching is the process in which colors are used to produce another color without altering the original color. You can also convert the colors using the Adobe Photoshop or a desktop printer. In converting colors during printing you must have different sheets of film for each color. The sheets must be arranged in the CMYK format.