About Color Printing
8-7
Appendix
8
About Color Printing
This section describes the fundamentals of colors and the way this printer
reproduces colors.
The Three Primary Colors of Light and Color
The colors that you see on a computer screen are reproduced from the three basic
colors red, green and blue. The 3 primary colors of light, which are red, green and
blue, can be combined to give white (additive color mixing).
A color printer, however, does not use the 3 primary colors of light, but uses the
same 3 primary colors as used in paintings to reproduce colors. If the 3 primary
colors of paint, C (cyan), M (magenta) and Y (yellow) are mixed together, the
resulting color is black (subtractive color mixing).
White
Green
Green
Blue
Blue
Red
Red
C
C
MY
MY
Black