Inkjet’s Age
Why WHITE INK
is an Irreplaceable
Tool for PSPs
By Amanda Luz Henning Santiago
If you’re new to the print industry,
you may not understand the signifi
cance of white ink. In fact, you
might assume that printing with
white ink makes little diff erence than
printing without it—this is not the case.
When white ink is working at its full
capacity, it provides numerous benefi ts
to Print Service Providers (PSPs), such
as vibrant images and endless printing
applications unattainable with a CMYK
gamut alone. Printing News spoke to
leading industry experts about what
makes white ink a pertinent tool for any
PSP or customer.
Retail applications for White Ink, image courtesy of HP.
A poster utlizing White Ink printed with Acuity Output,
image courtesy of Fujifi lm.
White Ink Normalizes
the Surface of Dark
Substrates
Without a foundational layer
of white ink on a dark colored
substrate of any kind, color would
simply fail to be seen with any
degree of brilliancy, according
to each industry expert Printing
News spoke with.
“It’s pretty simple, white ink
allows you to print on paper, or
substrates and material that are
not white,” said HP’s Chief Inkologist,
Th om Brown.
Applying an opaque base layer
of white ink prior to applying
colored ink mimics the look of
printing on a white substrate,
according to Matt McCausland,
Product Manager of Professional
Imaging at Epson America.
“If PSPs were to print directly
on to a dark substrate without a
white ink base layer the color output
would be dull, muted, and unrecognizable,”
said McCausland.
If they opted out of using white
ink, PSPs would have to resort to
using white or light colored substrates
to get their desired colors.
Brian Dollard, Director of
Strategic Planning and Business
Development for Ricoh USA,
provided an apt example of
how white ink can be utilized
on a dark surface: “Generally
speaking, whether it’s white ink
or white toner—and we do both
here at Ricoh—it’s all about normalizing
the surface that you’re
printing on. If you go to a concert
or a motorcycle shop, most oft en
the t-shirts there are black, right?
And we want to be able to print
vibrant colors on that black
t-shirt because it’s a background
26 Printing News June 2018 PrintingNewscom
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