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".
About the Author
Barry Shultz is the author of Atlascopy News, and
President of Atlascopy, Inc. Atlascopy specialized
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.
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