Edition Ink Calculator — Ink for Print Runs

Allow 10-15% for experienced printers and 20-25% for beginners. Screenprinting typically has lower spoilage (10%) than etching (15-20%). Multi-colour editions need more spoilage allowance because each colour pass adds risk of misregistration.

A solid block of colour uses 4x more ink than a 25% coverage image. Ink coverage is the percentage of the print area that receives ink. Estimate this by eye or measure it digitally. Most images fall between 30-60% coverage.

Screenprinting pushes the most ink through the mesh (~0.01 ml/cm²), followed by intaglio/etching which fills the grooves (~0.008 ml/cm²), then relief/linocut (~0.005 ml/cm²), and lithography uses the thinnest film (~0.003 ml/cm²). This directly affects how much ink you need per print.

Most of the ink you mix never reaches the paper — it stays on the slab, roller, plate and squeegee, or goes into colour-matching test proofs and cleanup. A 30% waste allowance (the default) is a practical figure for hand-printmaking; complex multi-colour work can waste more. This is why the result is higher than the bare film deposited on each sheet.

Registration is the time to align each colour layer. Screenprinting is fastest (pin registration). Etching is slowest due to plate alignment. Multi-colour prints multiply this time. Allow extra for the first few proofs of each colour.