CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black and are often referred to as four colour or process colours.

RGB stands for Red Green Blue. Broadly speaking, CMYK is used for printing, and RGB used for all screen and digital applications. In other words, if you are printing a brochure via conventional methods (see litho vs digital), your image must be in CMYK, and if you are using an image for a website or printing it on a digital printer, it must be in RGB.

Different screens, printers, paper (the list goes on) leads to the same % of colour looking different. Therefore, the only way that one is ensured that a colour will appear consistent across all applications is to specify a Pantone ref - similar in concept to the Dulux colour chart. The printer buys the ink already mixed, therefore ensuring that if you use printers in China vs the US, your colour will come out the same. Important in use for logos etc. Not applicable to image printing.

JPEG (pronounced JAY-peg) stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, the name of the committee that created the standard. In computing, JPEG is a commonly used method of compression for photographic images. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG compression is used in a number of image file formats. JPEG is the most common image format used by digital cameras and other photographic image capture devices; it is the most common format for storing and transmitting photographic images on the web.

The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a simple image format that has widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability. It also supports animations. The color limitation makes the GIF format unsuitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with graduated color, but it is well-suited for simpler images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color.

Tagged Image File Format (abbreviated TIFF) is a file format for storing images, including photographs and line art. The TIFF format is widely supported by image-manipulation applications, by publishing and page layout applications, by scanning, faxing, word processing, optical character recognition and other applications. Tiff images hold vast amounts of imformation and tend to be very large in size, therefore usage is limited to print, and no use is applicable for web.

Litho printing or lithography refers to the traditional method of printing using printing plates. These would normally be made up of CYMK plates (Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black plates) to make up images and text. These 4 process plates can be added to, by Pantone plates (or spot colours), making 5, 6, 7 or more plates. The expense in litho lies in producing the plates, so this only becomes a cost-effective method on runs over around 500. Plates can be stored (although not indefinately) so they can be reused at a later date if your document doesn't undergo changes.

Digital printing, using RGB, is a cost effective way of printing, using printers that are similar in theory to your home printers, but much higher spec and larger. Therefore very cost effective on small print runs, as no plates are produced. However, cost per unit is high in comparison to litho. Digital printing has its limitations; it cannot use Pantone specified colours and paper stock or material is limited.

These days, our digital capabilities have vastly improved, however machinery is still very expensive, and in South Africa, it is still safe to say if you can afford to go Litho, or it is an option quantity wise, it is recommended to do so. In Europe, there are machines that produce results that are comparable to litho, but these are massively expensive and rare.