Color separations

To reproduce color and continuous-tone images, printers usually separate artwork into four plates—one plate for each of the cyan (C), yellow (Y), magenta (M), and black (K) portions of the image. When inked with the appropriate color and printed in register with one another, these colors combine to reproduce the original artwork. The process of dividing the image into two or more colors is called color separating, and the films from which the plates are created are called the separations.

Adobe InDesign CS4 supports two common PostScript workflows; the main difference is where separations are created—at the host computer (the system using InDesign and the printer driver), or at the output device’s RIP (raster image processor). Another alternative is a PDF workflow.

For more information on separating colors, see web Help.

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