Why can’t printers accurately print a highlighter color, such as neon yellow? All colors tend to be duller and not as vibrant.

Question

Why can’t printers accurately print a highlighter color, such as neon yellow? All colors tend to be duller and not as vibrant.

In: 14

Answer 1

So highlighters are as bright as they are because their dye is *fluorescent* which means it absorbs non-visible light and then reflects it back as visible light. That’s why they look like the glow. It’s because they actually do glow a little bit.

Printers simply don’t use fluorescent dyes, so they can never recreate that effect.

I suspect it’s entirely possible to use ink that does fluoresce, but we it’s probably more expensive/not that useful.