Printer Cartridge Colors

Wow, I really haven't posted in a while. Hopefully I'll have more time this week so I can catch up on my journal posts.

Anyway, just yesterday my printer ran out of color ink so I had to swap out the cartridge. When I got out the pack, I saw the box and laughed because the tricolor dots were yellow, magenta, and cyan. Until this past chapter on light and color, I never really thought about those colors except to know that it was a color cartridge with the correct number for my printer.

In that last chapter, we learned that light is made up of the primary colors: red, green, and blue. And that, in various combinations, these primary colors, make up the secondary colors: yellow, cyan, and magenta. However, this is not true for paints. Therefore, in order for our printers to print the colors in ink that appear in light on our screens, yellow, cyan, magenta, and black must be used. By using these colors, the printer is able to replicate all the shades of any color by varying the size of the dots printed in each color. Then, light will hit the dot combinations and the correct balance of colors will reflect back to our eyes allowing us to see the correct color/shade.