Carbonless NCR Forms Printing - PMS Ink Color
What is the difference between CMYK and PMS Ink Colors?
We often get asked "what is the difference between CMYK and PMS". For designers and printers this is basic knowledge; however for the average customer who wants their logo or material branded it can create many questions. CMYK in basic terms is full color printing using cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink to form all colors needed for the print job. Much like a childhood art class when you mixed yellow and red to make orange for finger painting.The same principal in art class applies to printing we can create different colors of inks using different percentages of CMYK to form a specific color; however when matching for example a PMS ink to CMYK it will not be exactly the same, but close for the full color printing process. If you want to have a specific PMS it is cheaper and much cleaner to use a spot color verses a CMYK ink to accomplish the same thing.
PMS stands for Pantone Matching System (PMS) a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, primarily printing, though sometimes in the manufacture of colored paint, fabric, and plastics. PMS colors or spot colors are used in the printing industry and allow you to specify a color by indicating a PMS name (reflex blue) or a number (202) Burgundy. This assures you the correct color printed even though your computer monitor may look different. PMS works well with spot colors; however when printing CMYK the matching system is not exact for all PMS inks and some color variation(s) may occur.
Many people get confused when ordering and using the colors on their monitor to coincide with the printing process. Most computer monitors are RGB (red, green, blue) and do not have black in the process. I have heard time and time again the form looks great on my monitor but when the form is printed it can look washed out, missing information, and /or graphics if it is not properly converted from RGB to CMYK.
There are thousands of PMS colors to choose from when designing your forms. Each color can be used to make your business unique to you.
Standard PMS Ink Colors
When ordering forms, we give you several basic inks to choose from:
You can also supply other PMS Color numbers to be used for printing your forms.
Simple provide or enter the PMS Color number at time of order.
