Why is the abbreviation of ‘Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black’ called ‘CMYK’ and not ‘CMYB’?

Question

Why is the abbreviation of ‘Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black’ called ‘CMYK’ and not ‘CMYB’?

In: Technology

Answer 1

B is easily confused for blue (RGB color), so a different letter is used.

K also is generally understood to mean Key plate, (black provides sharp detail/contrast and is the most noticible color and so when someone is manually aligning different color plates it’s the most critical (key) one) though there’s a bit of argument as to if that’s really the case originally. There’s no definitive etymology on this.

In any case it’s likely a combination of these two factors that cemented K as meaning black in CMYK printing.