Process color vs. Spot, or solid color


What is the difference between spot and process colors?

PANTONE Solid Colors, also commonly referred to as 'spot' colors, are produced by mixing inks to a given shade and then laying the ink on paper in a single pass. This is commonly done in one or two-color print jobs.

PANTONE Process Colors are produced using four-color process, or CMYK, where an image is separated into cyan, magenta, yellow and/or black values, and printed as a series of dots of the colors, printed in close proximity to each other. When viewed by the human eye, the dots are blended to create the illusion of a solid field of color.

Please note that these terms also relate to color in general; i.e., you could restate your question as 'what is the difference between solid and process colors' and the result would be the same.

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