Spot color
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Spot color is both a method of printing, and a method of specifying a color.
In spot color printing, each color is printed with its own ink. A contrasting method is process color printing where colors are created by combining 4 inks (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). Spot color is used when a color is difficult or impossible to create by combining CMYK inks (e.g. a fluorescent or metallic color).
Generally, spot color is useful and more economical when there are only one to three spot colors used, unless it is absolutely necessary to use four or more spot colors that cannot be reproduced using CMYK inks. Using many spot colors may become expensive because of print fees incurred for running each extra color.
Several spot color systems exist. A few of them are:
- Pantone is the dominant spot color printing system in the United States.
- Toyo is a common spot color system in Japan.
- DIC is another common Japanese spot color system.
- ANPA is a palette of 300 colors specified by the American Newspaper Publishers Association for spot color usage in newspapers.
Because each color system creates their own colors from scratch, spot colors from one system may be impossible to find within the library of another.