Color Separation

A means of dividing a full color photograph into four separate components, corresponding to the four primary colors used in process color printing—cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Process color printing involves overprinting halftone dots of each of these four colors in varying densities, the various combinations producing the wide range of reproducible colors. Consequently, a different printing plate needs to be made of each color and this, in turn, requires separate negatives or positives. (The term color separation refers to both the process and the products of that process.) The process of color separation can be accomplished photographically, electronically, or on the desktop.