1) Does CMYK uses less ink than CMYKLcLm mode? 2) How much less? (10%, 20%, 30%...) 3) What is the printer resolution when you print in CMYK mode?. Is it 360 dpi,480 dpi? I'm asking because it's very easy to tell the difference between 4 color and 6 color printing quality. In 4 color mode you can see dots. In 6 color mode the prints are almost "dot free". In CMYK mode prints look like 360 dpi to me.
Somehow i cant post this message in full so i have to split.
The difference in the quality of the prints IMHO is the fact that some machines have 360dpi addressable, with quite big droplets. But if you print in 6 colors instead of 4 with those machines, you will get the apparent resolution of 720 dpi more or less. So with Seiko, where you have addressable 720dpi, then with 6 colours you get something closer to 1440 apparent IMHO. That's because 1 - the droplet is very small, 2 - the addressable dpi is 720, 3 - the light colours make it apparently better.
As far as reduction of ink is concerned. Well, in your rip, at least in mine you can, although i don't have 64s yet, it's coming next week, but i have a lot of experience with other machines and i went through operating six of them in the last couple of years, you can see the curves in the settings. In the case of pure, e.g. magenta, you will have a straightforward function of y = x, right? If you take magenta with light, then you will have it differently, you just have to calculate the areas of the triangles that these functions produce. I believe that just from this calculation you can come up with something like 15 to 25 percent savings on magenta and cyan, depending on the machine (cuz not all light inks are the same).
That's my answers, hope to see some other opinions too.
