Can I Have Your Recipe?

With its limited gamut and ability to simulate only about 60 percent of standard Pantone colors, however, the four-color process system packs insufficient marketing punch for many packaging applications. Designers are constantly frustrated when printing in CMYK alone, as it permits just four color (halftone) combinations, and therefore can reproduce only a limited range of hues. Working with spot colors also can be costly and time-consuming. A more aesthetically rewarding and cost-effective option is to alter or add two or more special colors to the standard four-color process set (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) in order to augment or “extend” the standard gamut and enable the press to print a wider range of colors.