Four Whites, No Colour
Every tone in this figure is white ink. There is no process colour anywhere on the sheet — no cyan, no magenta, no yellow, no black. The greys are the black paper showing through white ink that has been laid down at less than full coverage.
The HP Indigo press carries four white channels, and coverage is additive — each pass lays ink over what came before. This piece runs them as flat tints at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% printed twice. Where all four overlap the sheet carries well past 300% total coverage; where only the first lands, the black paper reads through a thin film of white and returns a soft grey.
Why Four Passes and Not One
A single white pass on black paper cannot hold a highlight — the substrate reads through and the brightest areas land somewhere around mid-grey. Splitting the artwork across four flat tints lets each region take exactly as much ink as its tone needs, and the tone comes from which passes reach a given area rather than from any one of them.
Note which way the passes run: the broadest one is the lightest. The 25% tint covers nearly the whole figure. Each pass after it covers less area at more strength, until the double hit touches only the brightest edges — the smallest area on the sheet, carrying the most ink of any pass. That inverse relationship between area and strength is what produces continuous tone rather than four flat steps.
Where the Definition Comes From
The white build supplies tone, but not edges. Every crisp line in this piece — the pupils, the seams between the antler forms, the fine strokes running down the limbs — is a fifth printed layer: a rich-black CMYK plate laid over the finished white.
It is the least visible layer in the stack and the one doing the most work. Remove it and the figure still reads, but softly, like an airbrush rendering. Restore it and the forms snap into focus. That division of labour — white for value, black for line — is what lets an image this detailed survive on a substrate that offers no white of its own.
Lamination Before Foil
Digital sleeking foil does not adhere to paper. It bonds to toner, which means the foil always follows something printed. On this piece the printable soft touch laminate goes down over the finished white build first, then the sleeking artwork is printed on top of the laminate, and the copper foil is applied to that.
Running the laminate first protects the white ink underneath and gives the copper a dead-matte field to sit against, so the frame, the bees and the eyes carry the only reflectance on an otherwise entirely matte sheet.