What is four-color process?
The term four-color refers to the three process colors of yellow, cyan (blue), and magenta (red) plus black. From these four colors printed in screens of dots, one on top of the other, you can make almost all the colors in the spectrum. Anytime you see a full-color photograph printed in a book or magazine, its four-color process. Anytime a cover looks like it has more than two colors, its probably a four-color cover. The next time you notice a blurry picture in a color newspaper, take a closer look and youll see how the process works. The picture is blurry because the press was out of register. Perhaps the cyan ink didnt drop precisely on top of the yellow ink. Sometimes the register is so bad you can actually see the different-color dots.
