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Cyan And Magenta - Why The Goofy Names?
Blue, Red, Cyan, Magenta? What's the difference? This weeks article should
shed some light on this puzzling phenomenon.
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Some web sites are made up of frames and just hitting the print icon may not
print what is desired. Simply click anywhere inside the frame, no need to highlight,
and this will tell the software which frame you want to print. Frames can be
hidden so just click once on the information you want then click the print icon.
You can also select the desired frame by clicking file, print and selecting from
the "Print Frames" menu.
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If you use Photoshop or any high end program you can better match your monitor
with your actual print by changing the color mode from RGB to CYMK. When you read the article below it will make more sense. By the way RGB stands
for Red, Green, Blue which is what your monitor works to reproduce. CMYK is Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black which is the mode all inkjet printers work in.
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Cyan And Magenta? Why The Goofy Names?
by Barry Shultz
Anybody who has purchased ink cartridges know that there is no blue or red ink. Cyan sure looks blue and Magenta definitely looks red to me so
why don't they just call them blue and red instead of cyan and magenta?
I'll try to clear things up a little. Monitors verses printers use different ways to produce color. A monitor is a light source while printers are light
reflecting. The only common ground between a monitor and a printer is what is referred to as dithering. The definition of dithering is as follows:
A process that simulates shades of gray or color variations by differing sizes and shapes of pixel groups instead of an ordered array of halftone dots. This reduces the contrast between dots of different colors or shades
and yields a more flowing, natural impression.
In other words dithering uses overlapping color dots to make colors and shades. Depending on how overlapped they are and how the dots are positioned results in a controlled color output of millions of different color
shades and hues.
Now back to our discussion. Monitors and printers both use primary colors, however, a monitor uses primary additive colors Red, Green and
Blue while printers use the primary subtractive colors Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. In both cases the primary colors are dithered to form the entire
color spectrum. Dithering breaks a color pixel into an array of dots so that
each dot is either made up of one of the basic primary colors or intentionally
left blank to create white.
Cyan and magenta are actually old printing terms for blue and red but there
had to be some way to differentiate them between the additive and subtractive spectrum. So I guess we're stuck with cyan and magenta for now.
So this guy goes to the store and says to the clerk, "I want to buy a red ink
cartridge for my printer". The clerk politely responds, "Sorry we only sell
magenta." "Bless you", the guy says, "do you need a hankie? Now about that red cartridge". The clerk, nonplussed, repeats, "Sorry we only sell
magenta". "You should do something about that head cold", the guy says. By now the clerk is fuming. "Look, do you want to by the magenta or
what?" The guy says, "No thanks, but I think I'll get out of here before I catch
your cold".
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Till next time.
Happy printing
Barry Shultz
Atlascopy, Inc.
PO Box 1292
Dover, DE. 19904
http://atlascopy.com
You may freely distribute this article as long as you include the following at the end of the article with the URL hard linked exactly as it is on this web page.
Barry Shultz is the author of Atlascopy News, and President of Atlascopy,
Inc. Atlascopy specializes in
affordable alternatives to the high cost of printer supplies. Sign up for
the Atlascopy Newsletter and get 10% coupons every week in your email. http://atlascopy.com/signup_new.htm
Go to Atlascopy to save a bundle on your printer and refilling supplies.
http://atlascopy.com
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