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What is the difference between process color and spot color?

The simple answer is spot color printing indicates colors of a specific predetermined hue and shade are mixed in the bucket before printing. Four color process printing is a method of using four base primary colors to simulate a full spectrum of color during the printing process.

Spot Color Printing

In a spot color printing job, a number of ink colors are selected before printing; these are the colors you will see in the final print. Halftones can be used for shading and mixing of colors, however you cannot create some colors from mixing and shading other colors.

These are 22 of Dowling Graphics Stock, Custom mixed, Spot Colors. With half tones a print can appear to have these additional shades of those base color.

However as none of these colors are primary colors, overlaying one of the reds with one of the blues using half tones will likely not create a purple. Because these specific mixtures of reds and blues already contain a small amount of yellow, and mixing red, blue and yellow generally gets you a brown. Additionally these inks are opaque so whichever color lays on top completely blocks out the colors behind.

Process Color Printing

In process printing 4 Inks are always used (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black "CMYK"). Using these inks and a rotating pattern of halftone dots a print can appear to have thousands of colors, shades and hues as well as a photographic quality.

How do I chose which process to use?

First Identify the amount and detail, of the color content, in the artwork you wish to have printed.

Color photographs and Color photographic illustrations, paintings and renderings will always reproduce best in 4-color Process. Line drawings, text designs, cartoon illustrations, flat logos and detailed illustrations containing less then 10 definable colors and little or no shading will print best in Spot Color.

Second decide what type of garment you wish to print on.

4-color Process works best on white, light and natural Garments. Because of its transparent nature process printing must be backed in white before it can be applied to dark or colored garments and even then a noticeable difference will exist between the print on light and the print on dark surfaces.

Spot Color Due to its Opaque Nature Will Always print best on dark and black garments and there will be less of a noticeable difference between the print on light and the print on dark surfaces. However as the eye perceives all colors in relation to their surroundings both spot and process prints will appear different from garment color to garment color.

Colors will tend to look brighter on a dark surface then they do on a light surface.

The difference between Color, Shade and Hue.

A color is like a family name: Red, Yellow, Blue, Green and so on. In any color there can be infinite hues. A hue is created when a color from one of the base families is added to a color from one of the other families in this chart the Blue square is the color.

At the top we have added low percentages of Yellow & Magenta to the color to create different hues of Blue.

At the bottom we have added low percentages of Black & White to create Shades of this specific Blue.

There are infinite Hues of Blue, however shades of a specific Blue are limited. And in printing there are even fewer shades of this Blue. An absolute maximum of 198 in fact, as in printing we rely on half tones to create shades and the half tone scale runs from 0%-100%.

Thus 0% of this blue would be white and 100% of this Blue would be, well this Blue and to darken the shade of this Blue we would add Black over the Blue and 100% Black over this Blue would be Black.

That said, in screen printing there are even fewer shades of a specific color, as screen printing is a wet ink process and ink (any liquid) has a tendency to move (Pool together or pull apart depending on it's surroundings.) So halftone percentages above 70%-80% can tend to fill to 100% and halftone percentages below 20%-10% can tend not to print at all.(as the holes in the screen may be to small for the ink to push through or may not wash out during screen prep) then there's the additional obstacle of the screen mesh itself if a printable hole is smaller then the thread which holds the screen together then no ink will pass.

Additionally if the hole is say, twice the size of the threads up to half of the ink can be blocked by the thread. On the other side of the spectrum if two or more dot holes are the same size or bigger then the opening between the threads and the gap between those dots is less then the thickness of the thread you will get 1 big dot as the ink from the left and right side of the thread will meet on the back side of the screen.

Does Dowling Graphics conform to the CPSIA lead regulations?

Absolutely. Dowling Graphics is committed to the safety of our customers.

A copy of our CPSIA conformity document, as provided by our ink supplier is available here.