industry terminology

Digital Image - Any image (hand drawn, photograph, photomechanical reproduction, color or black and white) that has been electronically digitized (converted by an input device such as a scanner.

Color Separation - The physical reducing of a full-color image into 4 separate printing plates for reproduction purposes. Can be physical (acetate) or digital.

Four Color Process Printing - A printing process by which the color spectrum is reduced down to four colors (black, magenta, goldenrod and cyan) which, when combined, give the APPEARANCE of a full color image.

Spot Color - A printing process by which color is laid down only in certain places within the image. Usually reserved for flat graphics, line art, hand drawn illustrations, etc.

Line Art - black and white images with no gray tones (example: pen and ink drawing).

Halftone - A printing process which gives the appearance of several different tones while really printing only a single color. Usually, image is converted to a pattern of dots.

Example of a halftone