"Four-color" illustrations...

[EricNoah]

I'm noticing a number of upcoming products from WotC will not be full color, but instead will be "four-color". The hardcover Sharn book for Eberron is one, and the Frostburn book is another. Anyone know what these four-color illustrations will look like?

 

[TheAndy tm]

I'm noticing a number of upcoming products from WotC will not be full color, but instead will be "four-color". The hardcover Sharn book for Eberron is one, and the Frostburn book is another. Anyone know what these four-color illustrations will look like?

4-color is full color, that's just the technical term.
By using four colors of ink (red, blue, yellow, and black) in various combinations most colors can be created. That's how all color printing is done.

 

[Berandor]

Yeah, four color printing is fine

 

[SkeletonKey Ed]

To get very technical, the "four-color" printing process uses CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK) ink to achieve a "full-color" look. Look at any color RPG book with a magnifying glass and you will see a little CMYK roset patern that uses different sized dots of color to trick the eye into seeing millions of color combinations.

EN Publishing's Four Color to Fantasy get it's name from the four color printing process used on color comic books

Cheers -

Ed

 

[EricNoah]

Ah, see I was imagining something with black, white, some kind of tan/brown, and maybe a blue, not mixed together. Weren't there a few 2E products that kind of went that route? In any case, thanks for the clarifications.

 

[Klaus]

During 2e, lots of products had two colors, mostly cyan/black (the core books come to mind) or magenta/black (the 2e Draconomicon).

Later on, they experimented with black + special color (technical bable: you replace the ink drums in your printer with an ink drum filled with a custom-color, like the brownish red found in, say, Complete Book of Elves). Every now and then you'd also have a 4-color page, like the gorgeous John & Laura Lakey picture that opened up the 2e DMG (the one with the gorgeous blonde holding a mirror that reflects an ogre).

The most expensive line TSR had was Planescape. Not only were all pages 4-color (thanks to the borders), they also seemed to have a special color (the muted gold highlights), making it a 5-color page (and yes, there are colors you can't achieve with CMYK, like acid greens, metallic colors, sharp aqua blues and stuff).