Ink breakthrough puts the shine into printed images

The difference between a matt and a glossy painted surface shows that there's more to the appearance of real-world objects than colour alone. But reproducing that variation in printed images has been beyond the capabilities of even the best colour printers. Now an international team of computer scientists says that could soon change thanks to a printer that can reproduce sheen as well as colour.
Spot the difference

Some modern printers can use matt, glossy or metallic inks to change the reflectivity of an image, but the inks are always used on their own, as so-called spot colours. But by carefully mixing a range of such metallic inks, Fabio Pellacini at Adobe Systems and Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, says it's possible to reproduce subtle differences in reflectivity in the same way that mixing cyan, magenta and yellow can reproduce a range of colours.

Pellacini worked with colleagues including Wojciech Matusik and Szymon Rusinkiewicz at Adobe Systems. The team used a colour thermal printer, which is versatile enough to print many metallic inks and foils as well as standard inks.