Our perception of color is something that isn’t easy to qualify or define. With some allowances for color-blind individuals, we can all recognize colors when we see them, and make very fine discriminations between different colors. However, color judgments are notoriously subjective and depend not only on the "actual" color but on other factors such as level and type of illumination, the surrounding colors and even our psychological or emotional state. And how do you describe colors in a meaningful way to someone else? Labels like "blue" and "yellow" (or even "cobalt blue" and "lemon yellow") are hardly the answer. To handle colors in a technical way, we need precise standards for characterizing them so that they can be accurately and consistently detected, classified, and recreated.

Because different devices use different color models, it’s as if they are speaking different languages - which is a big part of the color reproduction problem! Each color model uses various parameters to reference and organize its spectrum of detectable colors. Any color may then be specified exactly by naming the model and the numerical values of the parameters.

Fortunately, there are just two principal color models used in designing for print: RGB and CMYK.

Move on to the next page, Color Models, to see descriptions of these standards, a direct comparison between them, and to learn why they are important to the design process.