Multicolor or fixed palette printing is generally associated with printing with four process color inks namely CMYK. Sometimes it also uses additional Pantone shades, to produce a color shade that is not reproducible using the CMYK process colors. This system has been in use for many years and is still in vogue. In many cases, higher density inks have been used to improve the printing of process colors by using higher density inks to produce the richer/darker colors. Though this helps to improve the richness of the colors, it makes the highlights darker in print which can at sometimes be a drawback.

There have been attempts to improve the printing of process colors by printing six colors, namely CMYKOG, which came in very powerfully, but somehow never gathered momentum.

Thereafter another system came in with improved capabilities. Over the years that team has worked very hard to improve its performance, in more ways than one. The present system is fully equipped to help the printer get full benefits.

Of late, there has been a lot of interest in creating awareness in following the seven color system of printing, with a consortium of companies coming together to focus on this system, now known as the REVO project. I think this is a good move as it will benefit the printers, substantially, to follow this system of seven color printing as a standard practice. This principle of seven color printing can be practiced independently of the companies of the consortium and a printer is free to choose the partners it he wants.

The best part of the system is that it gives the prepress department the ability to convert the RBG/CMYK image into separations for CMYRGBK, within no time, that enhances the color gamut reproduction which is very easily seen on the monitor itself. This is the only software I have seen that can do this without batting an eyelid. Earlier we used to spend hours in trying to prepare a separation for printing a Pantone shade to combine with the CMYK image, by manipulating the CMYK image separations. The system also allows you to edit the separations, to an extreme, that I have not seen before. Also the editing functions are simple and easy to manage.

With the REVO process, the improved color gamut that one sees on the monitor can be easily reproduced using the defined set of inks. It also improves the appearance of the metallic colors like gold and silver which is really amazing. The use of the ink suggested can also be used as standard for printing of all jobs, irrespective of the printing process or substrate used. The essence is to use a good white substrate with the standard set of inks.


R S Bakshi is managing director at Colour Dot, an India-based prepress specialist.