CMYK
The four inks of colour printing: cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
Also: four-colour printing, process colours
Most printed colour, from newspapers to packaging, is built from four inks: cyan, a greenish blue; magenta, a pinkish red; yellow; and black. Each is printed as a pattern of tiny dots, and the eye blends them. Values are given as percentages of each ink. In theory cyan, magenta and yellow together make black, but in practice they give a muddy brown, so black ink is added for crisp text and deep shadows. The K stands for key. CMYK cannot match the brightest colours of a screen.