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Colour Printing

Expert reproduction techniques are provided at Clere Print for our own selection of printing presses, capable of thousands or millions of impressions for publishing magazines, brochures, cards, posters and similar massmarket items. The technique we use to print full-colour images, like colour photographs, is referred to as four-colour-process or sometimes just shortened to ‘process’ printing. Four inks are used: three secondary colours plus black. These ink colours are cyan, magenta, yellow and black; abbreviated as CMYK. We have lithographic and digital machines all printing using CMYK technology.

Graphic techniques are required to prepare images and files for four-colour printing. In the ‘pre-press’ stage, original images are translated into forms that can be printed, through ‘colour separation’, and ‘screening’ or ‘half toning.’ These steps make possible the creation of aluminium printing plates that can transfer colour impressions to paper on printing presses based on the principles of lithography or the passing of digital artwork to laser or inkjet machinery.

A similar process happens for work printed on our digital Xerox presses except that no printing plates are required. All the colour separation and pre-press work is carried out on computers which prepare the files for print.

Selecting the right ‘colour printing’ solution involves a detailed understanding of the required quantities, quality, materials and finishing processes.