Wysiwyg, “what you see is what you get” (In French « tel affichage, tel résultat ») the ideal aimed at in image reproduction; very easily realizable claim by the soft copy proof to show on the monitor what the output in a printer or in a printing press would show.

working color space (In French espace colorimétrique de travail) standard RGB color space optimized for processing images (color corrections, retouching, creations), defined in the form ofan ICC profile, e.g. AdobeRGB, eciRGB, sRGB (see Table W-1 “Working color spaces” on page 104); the optimizations avoid typical device weaknesses with respect to color space scope (objective: a “wide gamut” which shows all technically reproducible color shades), uniformity (evenly distributed color space support points) and lightness axis (ideal:…

wide gamut inks (In French encres à espace chromatique étendu) CMYK ink series, highly pigmented (conglomerates) and printable with greater ink film thicknesses, whose color space is extended vis-à-vis ISO 12647-2, e.g. Epple aniva.

whitening (In French blanchiment) increase in the contrast capability of inks through the addition of light pigments, e.g. blend white; see also fining.

whiteness of paper, whiteness index (In French indice de blancheur du papier, degré de blancheur) characteristic of the achromaticness of substrates, for which there are several formulae; the CIELAB chromaticity coordinates are prevailing more and more. The effect of optical brighteners is not shown in whiteness.

whiteness (In French blancheur) in the sense of sensory color spaces, the achromatic tones of the lightness axis of L* = 50 to 100.

whitener (In French agent de blanchiment) see optical/fluorescent brightening agent.

white point (In French point blanc) term commonly used in surface colors or monitor colors instead of the correct term neutral point, that is, the chromaticity coordinates of the illuminant.

white alignment (In French calibrage/étalonnage au blanc) 1) procedure in the calibration of a device (digital camera, monitor, densitometer, spectrophotometer) in which the white is referred either to a white standard (device standard in reflected light,drum or screen transparency in transmitted light) or a certain paper white to be printed. 2) automatic color correction in image processing programs.

wettability (In French mouillabilité) with respect to inks, their surface tension in terms of their capacity to be coated with waterbased varnish.

wet-on-wet printing inks standard formulation for multicolor printing scales in all printing processes; UV inks show better ink trapping during interim curing.

web colors (In French couleurs du web) colors available in Internet browser palettes; traditionally includes 216 “web-safe colors” in 8 bpp, though only 22 are considered fully safe today. Modern web design uses hexadecimal notation (e.g. HTML), including 16 VGA standard hues, 140 CSS-3 hues, and 147 extended colors. CSS allows definition in RGB, RGBA, CMYK, HSL, and HSLA. Older systems require fallback colors for compatibility.

wavelength (In French longueur d’onde) length of the oscillation period of a light ray measured in nanometers; 1 nm equals one thousandth of a micrometer or one millionth of a millimeter.

waterwashable (In French lavable à l’eau) property of a printing ink which allows it to be washed from rollers using water instead of a washing agent.

waterless offset inks (In French encres pour l’offset sans eau) offset printing inks developed for printing without dampening solution; depending on the special printing plates, these inks have a binding agent containing a silicone oil substitute; drying behaviors include oxidative-penetrating (sheet, long grain), purely penetrating (coldset newspaper printing, e.g. KBA Cortina), heatset (only in Japan), solvent-evaporating (sheet), as well as UV-curing inks.

water marks (In French marques/taches d’eau) setting of the ink-dampening solution balance in which more water is used than necessary; “at the water marks” means at the limit to overdamping or underinking; opposite: point of smearing.