cmyk - Four Color Printing according to DIN 12647-2 / Euroscale

cmyk Color Books for Offset Printers

The four color offset print, generally called Euro-Scale

... is printed according to ISO 12647-2 for offset print and ISO 12647-3 for newspaper print. Offset print originally works with a special procedure that is based on standardized colors, so called process colors. That are Cyan, Magenta, yellow and black (contrast), shortly cmyc, colors of the Euro-Scale. All these four colors are transparent and form the color variety by printing grid points on top and next to each other. They are useful for the reproduction of complex colored motives e.g. colors.

In Europe the four standard colors were originally defined as DIN 16539

... which was replaced by the ISO 12647 for the offset print. That’s why the term Euro-Scale is outdated. But the term is firmly embedded into the parlance that it is still used as a synonym for the new ISO (in Germany DIN).
For the manufacturing of offset print colors there also exists ISO 2846-1, ISO 2846-2 Coldset for newspaper print colors, that shouldn’t be confused with ISO 12647-2 for offset print resp. ISO 12647-3 for newspaper print.