This may be done to solve problems encountered due to printing an ink when one or more other layers of ink are still wet. Ideally, cyan, magenta, and yellow are all that are required to generate any color. Equal amounts of cyan, magenta, and yellow should create the equivalent amount of black. In reality, printing inks do not mix perfectly, and dark brown shades are generated instead. Therefore, real black ink is substituted for the mixed-black color to obtain a truer color print.
Black generation is the process of calculating the amount of black to be used.
There are several methods of generating black information. The applications software may generate black along with CMY data. Adjustability to handle extra black, less black, or no black is also desirable. This can be handled by a programmable lookup table. Programmable lookup tables for the cyan, magenta, and yellow colors may be used to implement a nonlinear function on the color data.