a printing bitmap of an image based on a printed solid color density wherein at least one of the colors thereof has a color density substantially greater than the swop standard and printing the bitmap in a single printing step application_number US 91329897 A description in a preferred but non limiting embodiment of the invention printing apparatus such as that described in pct publication wo 90 14619 in u s pat no 5 289 238 and in u s patent application ser no 08 371 117 filed jan 11 1995 and entitled imaging apparatus and intermediate transfer blanket therefor the disclosures of all of which are incorporated herein by reference is used as a platform for printing images having a higher color saturation than those previously available in a single print the voltages and other characteristics described in the above incorporated patents applications and other publications are not significantly changed in the practice of the present invention other printing methods are also useful in performing the invention including lithographic printing and powder toner imaging to the extent that inks or toners which can be printed to high printed solid optical densities are available and which have rheology appropriate to the particular printing or imaging process furthermore the present invention is not dependent on the particular half toning scheme used and the invention will usefully expand the color gamut when used with any half toning process it this respect while the standard half toning process depends on matching optical densities of an original with measured or standard effective halftone optical densities for inks printed at a standard printed solid optical density as described in the background.