A Print Performance Study of the Environmental Friendly Wide Gamut Process Inks

To expend the printed color gamut is the most important area for today’s print quality. Conventional wide gamut printing technologies utilize six or seven colors. However, these processes increase the complexity and the cost. Therefore, the four-color wide gamut inks are becoming the major development in Taiwan’s printing industry. This study is focused on the print performance study of the four-color wide gamut inks in the domestic market that are complied with the RoHS regulations. In this study Tung-Ming and K+E wide gamut process inks were tested for their print performance. The press control was to comply ISO12647-2 specifications. The test forms were printed on both type 1 and type 2 papers that specified in ISO12647-2. The normal process ink set was also printed to compare with those wide-gamut color ink sets. The result shows that the both wide-gamut ink sets have reached color gamut larger than the ISO12647-2. In this study shows that the domestic normal process ink set can comply the international standard, and the developing wide gamut ink also reach the standard. However, the color characteristics and printability have to test before using these wide gamut color ink sets. With the optimized process control and color management system, the four-color wide gamut inks can produce the best color result on paper.