CMYK is the king of color in the printing world. Four-color printing, (a.k.a. full-color printing) uses the CMYK process, which consists of four ink shades: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (sometimes called Key). 48HourPrint.com uses CMYK colors to create vivid color reproductions that will make your marketing pieces pop! Enjoy these interesting facts about four-color printing.

• CMYK gets layered

CMYK inks are semi-transparent, so instead of mixing these colors, they are layered together in the printing process. The outcome is bright, accurate, solid shades.

• Benefits of basic black

Any color, when lowered to the end of the spectrum, can create black, but this wastes ink. Including black in CMYK saves money and ink. Separating black from cyan, magenta and yellow in four-color printing optimizes the remaining colors and produces better results.

• C+M+Y+K=Subtraction

Four-color printing is often called a “subtractive” model because adding colored inks to white paper “subtracts” brightness from the paper.

• Spot-on colors

To create thousands of colors, four-color printing uses half-toning. Printing tiny dots of the four colors in varying amounts in a small pattern tricks the eye into seeing a particular color. Without half-toning, four-color printing would produce only six solid shades: cyan, magenta, yellow, green, purple and red.

• Avoid “shifty” colors

A computer monitor displays RGB (red, green and blue) colors, whereas printing presses use the CMYK process. To avoid a color shift in printing, design your file in CMYK or convert your RGB file to CMYK before submitting it.

Printing Factoid #1

• It was the introduction of the Apple LaserWriter, a PostScript desktop printer, and Aldus PageMaker (now Adobe) that kicked off the Desktop Publishing revolution.

When was desktop publishing invented?

Printing Factoid #2

• While Gutenberg gets most of the credit in the history books, William A. Lavelette, a lesser-known Black American inventor, patented a printing press in 1878 which greatly improved on the quality of printing. Until his innovations, the emphasis among printers was on high volume at the sacrifice of quality and readability. His printing press was more efficient and produced more legible printing than earlier presses.

Printing Factoid #3

• ?Writers and word processing professionals are familiar with the double-spaced, front of page only format common to manuscripts and reports. Did you know that this standard format was popularized by Mark Twain, an early convert to the use of the typewriter

Printing Factoid #4

• The term cc, used today in all types of correspondence, including email, to identify a courtesy copy or additional recipient, originated in the heyday of typewriters and carbon paper. cc stood for "carbon copy" and indicated that a carbon copy of the original typed document was supplied to additional recipients

Printing Factoid #5

• The printing press of Gutenberg borrowed from other presses of the day: textile, papermaking and wine presses. Basically, it pressed words onto paper.

Several events of the mid-1980s including the development of Aldus PageMaker (now Adobe PageMaker) ushered in the era of desktop publishing.

ANSWER:?It was primarily the introduction of the Apple LaserWriter, a PostScript desktop printer, and PageMaker for the Mac that kicked off the desktop publishing revolution. Aldus Corporation founder Paul Brainerd, is generally credited for coining the phrase, "desktop publishing." 1985 was a very good year.

1. 1984 - The Apple Macintosh debuts.
2. 1984 - Hewlett-Packard introduces the LaserJet, the first desktop laser printer.
3. 1985 - Adobe introduces PostScript, the industry standard Page Description Language (PDL) for professional typesetting.
4. 1985 - Aldus develops PageMaker for the Mac, the first "desktop publishing" application.
5. 1985 - Apple produces the LaserWriter, the first desktop laser printer to contain PostScript.
6. 1987 - PageMaker for the Windows platform is introduced.
7. 1990 - Microsoft ships Windows 3.0.

Fast forward to 2003 and beyond. You can still buy Hewlett-Packard LaserJets and Apple LaserWriters but there are hundreds of other printers and printer manufacturers to choose from as well. PostScript is at level 3 while PageMaker is at version 7 but is now marketed to the business sector.

In the intervening years since PageMaker's introduction and purchase by Adobe, Quark, Inc.'s QuarkXPress took over as the sweetheart of desktop publishing applications. But today Adobe's InDesign is firmly planted in the professional sector and wooing over many converts on both the PC and Mac platforms.

While Macintosh is still considered by some to be the platform of choice for professional desktop publishing, dozens of "consumer and small business desktop publishing" packages hit the shelves in the 1990s, catering to the growing legions of PC/Windows users. Most notable among these low-cost Windows desktop publishing options, Microsoft Publisher and Serif PagePlus continue to add features that make them more and more viable as contenders to the traditional "professional apps."

Desktop Publishing in the 21st Century?has seen a change in the way we define desktop publishing including who does desktop publishing and the software used, even if many of the original players remain.