Printing in white ink can be a difficult task and, in most cases, requires specialised printing equipment.
Due to being an achromatic colour, white ink can not be created by the mixing of other colours, which is how printers normally produce their range of shades. To print white onto paper, you’ll need specially created white ink.
Many people want to use white ink to create leaflets, flyers, postcards and even business cards for an elevated print design.
This article will explain the step-by-step process of how to print in white ink, how to check if your printer can print white ink and answer the most common questions.
Want to know the best printers for white ink printing? Keep reading.
Unfortunately, standard laser and inkjet printers can’t print in white ink. Most standardised printers will mix cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks to create the colours that you print but white has no hue, so it can’t be made by mixing inks.
However, Epson sells white ink cartridges compatible with its inkjet printers. If you want to create small-scale printouts using white ink at home this could be a viable solution, but the cost is much higher than a regular ink cartridge.
Before we get into the challenges, it’s worth pausing to consider why white ink is so sought-after. Here’s where it shines:
While there are many possibilities, white ink doesn’t behave in the same way as standard inks, which can result in a steep learning curve.
At its best, white ink looks crisp and enhances the colours around it. At its worst, it’s uneven, washed out or may not appear at all. Here are some of the most common challenges of printing in white ink and how you can deal with them.
Due to a breakthrough in printing technology, there are many specialised white ink printers. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Epson’s first UV LED flatbed, the SureColor SC-V7000 prints onto a wide variety of materials up to 80mm thick, including acrylics, metals, wood and PVC. It offers high-speed simultaneous printing, even when you’re using white, while ioniser is included as standard to reduce static and jetting inaccuracies. The Micro Piezo printhead can be used with 10 original inks, including white as standard.
The Canon Colorado M3 is part of Canon’s Colorado M-Series of large format printers. The M3 includes hassle-free white, using unique UVgel technology to print documents with high-opacity ink. No maintenance or printhead treatment is needed.
The HP Latex 730W offers the easiest white ink experience, now even faster than previous models. It uses HP Pixel Control and a built-in spectrophotometer to ensure reliable, high-quality output every time. Avoid manual maintenance thanks to automatic recirculation and prevent white ink waste by storing white printheads when not in use.
Deliver exceptional print quality in both colour and white with the HP Latex 830W. HP Latex White Ink is easy to maintain and adapt to your business needs, so you can get on with the job with confidence.
If your printer uses ghost white toner, it’s important you know how to send print jobs with white ink and if it doesn’t, you probably want to know how you can print using white ink.
There are two main ways that attempt to overcome the struggles of printing in white ink. These are: creating a white ink effect using a substitute colour and manually filling in the blanks left by a CMYK printer.
A white effect can be creating in a design by choosing a substitute colour to replace the pure white shades. By using a slightly different shade, the printer believes the white sections are to be printed as a colour with a numerical value.
Filling in the blanks manually allows you to achieve an almost perfect white finish but relies on printing on coloured paper. Once the design or document has been printed you can then paint on the white areas the printer left blank. However, this may not be suitable for large-scale printouts.
Printing ink is transparent in colour, so, when printed directly onto black paper, the ink does not show through. This is how you can get around the difficulty of printing white on black paper using an at-home printer.
To print using white ink on black paper you need to use a programme that allows you to fill the background of the page such as Adobe Photoshop or Windows Paint.
Choose black as the background colour and white as the foreground colour. Begin to create your design and text in white where appropriate.
Feed the black paper into your printer and print the document.
Printing white ink on coloured paper seems like it should be a simple task. Personal printers are unlikely to operate with white ink so here is how you can achieve similar results.
Try editing the colours in your design and swapping out pure white for very pale shades that your printer identifies as colour and can print effectively.
You can also try to create a white surface and add a transparent label on top. The area that is set to print white will be blank on the printout and the white surface will be visible through the transparent label creating the illusion of white text on a coloured background.
Adding white ink capabilities is a long-term investment that can significantly expand your service portfolio. For more information about printing in white ink and what white ink printer is best for you, get in touch today.
We're here to help. Whether you're looking to get started with a large format printer or you've been in the industry for years, our team of qualified specialists are always happy to lend a hand. Give us a call on 0845 680 9000.
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