Why do some printers have two cyans and two magentas?

[minigmh]

I am shopping for a color printer to print photos. I figure some of the specs that I think I should review are the resolution ( I want at least 2800x1200 I think). Some of them have six ink cartridges: two cyans and two magentas. Why is photo cyan and photo magenta different than regular cyan and magenta? It seems like if you are going to have six colors, they should all be different!
How come?

 

[jhaley]

4 color printers have Cyan, magenta, yellow and black

6 color printer have the same plus LIGHT magenta and LIGHT cyan.

A color printer doesn't mix colors to produce other colors

When you see orange come out of a color printer.. its actually tiny drops of magenta beside tiny drops of yellow... your brain it tricked into blending the 2 colors because the tiny dots are so close together

By using lighter verions of magenta and cyan, the printer can produce lighter, more subtle shades than are possible with the standard cyan and magenta colors.. hense, you get more "real life" colors


i hope this helps