How to adjust the color of printing ink? Requirements and Techniques for Color Adjustment of Printing Ink

How to adjust the color of printing ink?

During the printing process, many sample colors cannot be directly used without ink from the county town. Production enterprises need to adjust the colors according to the sample colors, which is called ink color matching, while printing factories call it ink blending. The color matching of printing ink is very important and also a difficult problem for printing.

The use of different proportions of three primary color inks to blend any specific color follows the theory of three primary colors and follows certain rules. The ideal three primary colors have the same coloring power, and when mixed in equal amounts, they can be called black. In fact, the three primary colors have optical defects that cannot be overcome, resulting in a mixed color band of brown color. Ink can be mixed in different proportions to obtain complex colors of different hues, which tend to be a mixture of one or two primary colors with a larger proportion. After mixing two primary colors of ink in equal amounts, a standard intermediate color hue can be obtained; Mixing two primary color inks in different proportions results in intermediate colors that tend to favor the primary color ink with a larger quantity.

Printing ink color matching skills:

1. Principles of color matching

(1) The color matching of printing ink should use the same type of ink produced by the ink factory as much as possible. The color saturation (chroma) of the shaping ink should be higher than that of the color matching ink made with two types of ink.

(2) If you want to use several shades of ink for color matching, you should try to use fixed ink with similar colors as much as possible to mix new color inks.

(3) When color matching, the variety of ink should be minimized as much as possible, because the more ink varieties used for color matching, the higher the color fading ratio, which will reduce the brightness and saturation (color saturation) of the color matching ink. Therefore, it is recommended to use one color tone instead of two colors of ink.

(4) When blending light colored ink, white ink should be the main ingredient, with a small amount of primary color ink added.

(5) When printing plastic packaging materials, in order to obtain light colored ink while still maintaining the required viscosity of the ink, diluting agents should be used, and diluents should be avoided as much as possible, because plastics are not easy to absorb solvents. Excessive diluents require increased drying energy, and the adhesive strength decreases due to the low solid content.

(6) The inks of different manufacturers, models and varieties cannot be mixed, otherwise the gloss and fastness of printing after mixing will be affected, and even the ink gel may be caused.

2. Properly utilize complementary color relationships

According to the principle of complementary color reduction using colorants, complementary hues add and fade. When blending colored ink, complementary colors should be used correctly. Sometimes complementary colorants should be avoided. For example, when mixing intermediate color inks or diluting primary color inks, it is advisable to avoid the mixing of complementary color inks as much as possible, because the more complementary colors are mixed in, the more color fading components are present in the ink, resulting in a decrease in color saturation and darkening of the color. For example, if color deviation occurs when mixing ink, the principle of complementary color through subtractive color correction can be used to correct the color. If the ink color is yellowish, in order to eliminate the yellow color, a small amount of purple blue ink can be added to the ink, because yellow and purple blue are complementary colors, and the two colors mix together to form a fading effect.

If you need to adjust the hue when adjusting the ink, you can also use complementary colors to solve the problem. For example, when the blue ink turns red and needs to be changed to a yellowish tone, just add a small amount of green ink to the ink, because the red light and green light reflected by the ink mix to form yellow light. Similarly, if the blue ink is yellowish and needs to be adjusted to reddish, just add a small amount of blue purple ink. The purple blue ink reflects red and blue light, while the yellow ink reflects red and green light. When the two ink colors are mixed, except for fading, the total color light is reddish blue ink.

In daily life, in order to make white whiter, adding a small amount (1%) of ultramarine to white can eliminate the yellow tone in white. When you feel that the black ink is not black enough, just add a small amount of light emitting blue ink to the black ink, and the black ink can turn black. In printing, adding a small amount of phthalocyanine blue to black ink can eliminate the yellow tone in black ink, making it even darker.