Primary color overlaid partially absorbing materials on a reflecting or transparent surface. Each layer partially absorbs some wavelengths of light from the illumination spectrum while letting others pass through multiplicatively, resulting in a colored appearance. Overlapping layers of ink in printing mix subtractively over reflecting white paper in this way to generate photorealistic color images. The typical number of inks in such a printing process ranges from 3 to 6 (e.g., CMYK process, Pantone hexachrome). In general, using fewer inks as primaries results in more economical printing but using more may result in better color reproduction. Cyan, magenta, and yellow are good
Secondary color out to be good primary colors for pigments, the mixing of which subtracts light. Pigments, such as inks and paint, display color by absorbing some wavelengths of light and reflecting the remainder. When pigments are combined, they absorb the combination of their colors, and reflect less. Thus, combining pigments results in a darker color. This is called subtractive color-mixing, as mixing pigments subtracts wavelengths from the light that is reflected. The mixture of equal amounts of these colors produce the secondary colors red, blue, and "lime" green (the RGB primary colors of light), as follows: That is, the primary and