The mixture of different inks in the Color Setup has an essential impact on the ink consumption. Read more about on how to profile a Color Setup in the article Profile a Color Setup. Find the different possibilites of a Color Setup, i.e. CMYK, CMYK + Light Inks and other gamut expanding colors below.
1. Overview
The following diagram shows an example of the potential impact of the ink setup for UV scanning printers, without touching the Color Management System (CMS) i.e. Color Profile for CMYKcm, CMYKck and CMYK. Variations are possible, depending on the print platform and ink system.
Figure 1: Potential impact of the ink setup for UV scanning printers
Similar tendencies can be observed when focusing on smoothness, graininess of the prints' image quality.
- Smoothness reduces the number of colors i.e. "noises" used in an image, which creates a file in smaller size.
- Graininess is often interchangeably used with Smoothness although it is actually its counterpart. A grainy picture shows tiny flecks on the print.
The following graph displays the quality of a print regarding the smoothness of the Color Setup. Here again the profiles CMYKcm, CMYKck and CMYK are compared.
Figure 2: Image quality regarding smoothness
In the next section we will shortly review the different Color Setup possibilites, CMYK, CMYK + Light Inks and other Gamut expanding Colors.
1.1. CMYK
Generally, the CMYK Color Setup allows the lowest possible ink consumption. The lack of light inks in this Color Setup has an impact on the graininess of light shade areas and bright color mixtures.
1.2. CMYK + Light Inks
The CMYK + Light Inks Color Setup is quite important, as smooth gradients and reduction of graininess of CMYK prints is only possible when using light inks.
Looking at the ink consumption variations, the use of light colors adds approximately 10 to 15% to the total consumption per additional light color ink (excluding possible variation in the color management settings).
In case of Light Black ink the proportion is slightly less. Light Black has a positive impact on the image quality if GCR (gray component replacement) approaches in the CMS are used to optimize ink consumption.
Note:
Best overall image quality can be achieved in combination with light inks
1.3. Gamut expanding Colors
Gamut expanding Colors not only expand the CMYK color gamut, the use of Gamut expanding Colors can additionally reduce overall ink consumption. Gamut expanding Colors cover areas within the color gamut that would results as well from color mixtures in case of CMYK.
For example:
- Orange: the CMYK setup uses Magenta and Yellow in different proportions to create Orange.
- Violet: the CMYK setup uses Magenta and Cyan in different proportions to create Violet.