What is Spot Colour?

Spot Colour is used by actually mixing ink to the desired colour rather than using the CMYK process to achieve it. The printer will mix varying amounts of colour to reach the correct consistency and then this is printed directly onto the document. Its not un-common to see a ‘full colour’ print job having an additional spot colour or ‘special’ as its known added to it either during the actual printing process or added after in a sepearte process. Some large printing machines have an additional facility for this, taking form a 4 colour machine to a 5th or 6th colour machine, so they are able to print the whole document using full colour and two spot colours in one pass. Spot colour is common when metallic colours are required, whereby they will not be achievable using the CMYK process.
 
when dealing with spot colour always good to ask for a sample on the media to be printed as there are different Pantone's coated and uncoated which can give a different look dependant on the medias absorption properties.

brand colours are important to a company if it is a large cost job a mistake in colour can be difficult to fix
 
Pantone 185 COATED AND Pantone 185 uncoated are the exact same ink.

They just look different colours because uncoated paper absorbs the ink as its porous.

That's why it is generally said to have a a variant of spot colour for coated and uncoated stocks of paper.

That being said a printer worth his salt sees 185c and it's printed on uncoated will try to match it as a lot of people don't follow that simple rule.
 
Pantone 185 COATED AND Pantone 185 uncoated are the exact same ink.

They just look different colours because uncoated paper absorbs the ink as its porous.

That's why it is generally said to have a a variant of spot colour for coated and uncoated stocks of paper.

That being said a printer worth his salt sees 185c and it's printed on uncoated will try to match it as a lot of people don't follow that simple rule.

Great addition from a Print professional :)
 
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