CMYK essentially stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (Black). The letter ‘K’ is used for Black because ‘B’ cannot be used as it already denotes Blue in the RGB color system. The CMYK color space is used for all print-related mediums.

RGB stands for Red, Green, and Blue and is commonly used color space for all digital screens. Learn why RGB is not commonly used for printing here.

The Purpose of CMYK

The RGB color model would be inefficient for specific printing purposes because inks of three colors (red, green, blue) would have to be mixed to get white, which is usually the most dominant color for a document containing text.

Paper is already white, and so, it makes no sense to waste three inks to get something that you already have. If we used the RGB color system in printing, huge amounts of ink would be consumed unnecessarily.

So the CMY (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) color system became the solution! Cyan and magenta can be combined to yield blue, magenta, and yellow when combined give you red and yellow when mixed with cyan results in green.

Black is a combination of cyan, magenta, and yellow – but printers realized there was no need to mix three inks to get black; black ink could be used separately for the purpose. This was also more efficient and resulted in what is known as four-color printing or CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key).

CMYK is considered to be a subtractive color as colors are needed to be subtracted in order to achieve other variations until it becomes white.