Ideal inks vs. optimal inks

There is a notion of ideal colors within color science. The significant properties of these ideal colors are that they cover the whole visible spectrum and that they spectrally exclude each other Ideal colors are rather predictable when using additive color mixing, but as ideal inks, they present more of a challenge, as subtractive mixing must be used. Many hold ideal inks as optimal mks, but as this paper will show, this is not always the case. Ideal inks are often used as a goal, albeit unobtainable, but there are other artificial mks that can be more optimal than the ideal mks. By making the ideal mks overlap, they will render more than 20% larger color gamut, and if the transitions in the overlapping regions are made smooth, an even larger gamut can be obtained. A simple model of smoother absorption spectra render a more than 40% larger color gamut than do ideal inks.