There are many different colors in the world. Some are vibrant, others are soft, and when it comes to printing, capturing true colors is an art. All printing inks start with the same three ingredients; colorants, vehicles and additives. How these ingredients are combined is what creates a solid foundation for superior printing.
Colorants, likes dyes or pigments, provide the color; Vehicles, like water or solvents, carry the pigment and then Additives create the consistency or how the ink performs. It is with additional ingredients that ink gets taken to the next level. A great example is metallic inks. They contain small particles of metal giving the ink a reflective quality that is useful in many applications. Other ingredients that can be added include glitter, phosphorescent and fluorescent.
Although the making of ink has not changed in centuries, the additional ingredients that have been added in more recent time takes printing colors to a whole new level.