RE: [css-color] Preemptive rebuttal to requests to merge the JS color classes

On 2014-08-09 Lea Verou wrote:
> On Aug 8, 2014, at 23:11, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The obvious fix for this is to expand the names from single-letter
> > (from the function names) to words.  That doesn't actually work,
> > though: "black" is shared, with different meaning, by both CMYK and
> > HWB.
> 
> Like I said on IRC yesterday:
> The K in CMYK stands for Key, not blacK: "The "K" in CMYK stands for
> key because in four-color printing, cyan, magenta, and yellow printing
> plates are carefully keyed, or aligned, with the key of the black key
> plate. Some sources suggest that the "K" in CMYK comes from the last
> letter in "black" and was chosen because B already means blue. However,
> this explanation, although useful as a mnemonic, is incorrect." [1].

In my opinion 'key' is backronym for blacK ;-)

The only area where 'key' is relevant is offset litography - only here you
work with plates which need to be correctly 'registered' (aligned). A press
operator can use any of CMYK separations as a base to which all other will
be aligned. When printing with primary colors (e.g. Pantone) or some special
jobs (e.g. some kind of duotone), the black doesn't need to be present at
all so it cannot be named as a key. 

In summary, key doesn't need to be black, but K in CMYK is always black. So
I would prefer black here.

Jan

Received on Saturday, 9 August 2014 19:43:16 UTC