Tinting in printing terms refers to an effect achieved by adding various percentages of ink color to lighten its shade or tone, creating tinted versions. Tints enhance printed materials’ visual appeal, add depth to designs, improve legibility, and extend palette range by utilizing limited hues.
For creating tints, particular color ink must be combined with white ink or left unprinted areas on a substrate to produce lighter variations of its original hue. The ratio between original ink added or unprinted areas determines its intensity or value as a tint.
Designers looking to produce lighter shades of blue can mix different proportions of blue ink with white ink to obtain desired shades, from light (10% blue, 90% white) to very pale (90% blue, 10% white). As more blue ink is added, its intensity increases.
Tints are often employed in print materials like brochures, packaging, flyers, and posters to add visual interest and enhance overall design. Tints can create gradient effects that add gradient effects that shade or highlight components within an ensemble composition.
Photography offers another wonderful example: tints can be added to monochromatic images to simulate traditional toning techniques like sepia or cyanotype, creating photos with unique atmospheres or vintage aesthetics that evoke memories or emotions associated with those decades. Tints may evoke certain moods or feelings within photos by imitating this process.
Tints in printing provide designers with an invaluable asset, enabling them to expand their color palette and produce more striking prints by altering hue and tone.