4 color VS. 6 color solvent? goods & bads?

[chrismccray]

what are the advantages and disadvantages of buying a 4 color solvent printer vs. a 6 color solvent print? we're looking at buying a true solvent printer to go with our eco-solvent (mutoh 1604), our uv flatbed (fuji acuity), and our uv roll-to-roll (colorspan 5465). any printer that might compliment these three and give us more flexibility?

 

[eye4clr]

Simple....

4 color uses less ink overall, may go faster than 6 color if in a 2x4 vs 1x6 setup, and looks "grainier" up close.

6 color will have the perception of higher resolution, use more ink, and may have harder times drying when printing black due to how the light inks transition to the full inks and how much they get used when printing process blacks.

 

[rfulford]

May I ask what your goal is for this machine? Looking at your equipment, I would assume you are thinking about grand format or at least larger than your current lineup. Like Eye4Color says, 4 color uses less ink and may go faster depending on the printer. If this is the case, I would look for a 4 color machine or an 8 color with a fast 4 mode to increase your print time. The market for grand format is cheap and fast.

 

[DigitalBBQ]

Simple....

4 color uses less ink overall, may go faster than 6 color if in a 2x4 vs 1x6 setup, and looks "grainier" up close.

blacks.

4 color will jet out the exact amount of dot resolution as 6 color, only that 6 color will have extra Light Magenta, and Light Cyan dots in the making of those higher color gamuts. LM and LC will jet out and make up the same inks limits. Just that it look much more vivid with LM and LC inks.

If you are not printing Art for gallery, 4 color will be just find. Beside, 4 color or 6 color on the dots pitch comparison is very much the same since each profile do have inks limit landing on media, you can set up density so that the 4 ink system land a bit more satulate hence to eliminate dots or grains whatever out of the equation. But it will take more ink to print, use 3rd party ink will save you money. But you will need a spectrometer to profile your inks limits so that it land perfectly (Density).

Mastering profiling and dither type will eliminate all undesirable dots pattern, etc.

 

[eye4clr]

4 color will jet out the exact amount of dot resolution as 6 color, only that 6 color will have extra Light Magenta, and Light Cyan dots in the making of those higher color gamuts. LM and LC will jet out and make up the same inks limits. Just that it look much more vivid with LM and LC inks.

You are right the dot size is the same in both systems.

6 color and 4 color systems have the exact same gamut potential. What you gain with light inks is the fact that our eye can't see the printed dots as well when they are made with lighter color inks. This makes it appear to be higher resolution and a smoother print. The gamuts stay the same.

Ink amounts used in 6 color systems can be significantly higher in some colors. Black is a common example. If your output profile makes your total ink for black up something like 55/50/50/95 (CMYK, and your RIP transitions the light inks to the full inks around the 50% mark, you'll be firing all 6 colors to make the black. This can easily exceeded the 250% total ink in my example. Same can be true for dark red, greens, and blues.

rfulford's comments and questions are really at the heart of the OP's question.

 

[Stan B]

I would like to express my gratitude to rfulford, DigitalBBQ and eye4clr. Great short precise info. Some interesting related fact sheet I found helpful is http://www.efi.com/documents/products/production/VUTEk/pdf/VUTEk_Tech_Brief_Resolution.pdf

in a last 2 paragraphs briefly touches and explains a bit further