There are many interesting facts about color which are useful to know when weighting the merits of digital proofing. Please bear in mind that when we prepared this graph ink Jet printers only had limited gamut, today with additional colors and better inks they are much more capable.
Table of colour gamuts
Color monitor 16.7 million colors.
Human eye detects 10 million colors.
Color slide 6 million
Color print 3 million
Analogue proof 6 thousand
Digital color proof CMYK 2-4 thousand
Printing press coated stock 4 thousand
Printing press newsprint 2 thousand
The merits of digital proofing
Many conclusions, both interesting & useful can be drawn from the data in the
table above, ie. your brand new monitor is capable of producing 16.7 million colors, some that your eye can't detect. How often have you heard this remark the proof looks much better than the printed job? The reason -the proof reproduces two thousand colors that simply cannot be matched on the press! Whereas a good inkjet printer using a good quality paper stock is capable of reproducing just the colors that you can print using CMYK. In other words, the digital proofing color gamut matches the offset printing gamut exactly what you see on the proof is what you get on the press.
