When you need to achieve the maximum number of printed colors with the fewest number of inks, you can create new ink swatches by mixing two spot inks or by mixing a spot ink with one or more process inks. Using mixed ink colors lets you increase the number of colors available without increasing the number of separations used to print the document.

You can create a single mixed ink swatch or use a mixed ink group to generate multiple swatches at once. A mixed ink group contains a series of colors created from incremental percentages of different process and spot color inks. For example, mixing four tints of process cyan (20%, 40%, 60%, and 80%) with five tints of a spot color (10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50%) results in a mixed ink group that contains 20 different swatches.

Swatches panel with mixed ink swatches

A.

Parent of mixed ink group

B.

Child in mixed ink group

C.

Mixed ink swatch (standalone)

Before you can create a mixed ink swatch or a mixed ink group, you must add at least one spot color to the Swatches panel.