Method of relief printing and a relief printer

A printing method for printing a digital image on a substantially flat substrate, the printing method comprising the steps of:

• providing the digital image comprising a raster of a plurality of pixels, the digital image comprising color information for each pixel;
• providing a height channel to the digital image defining a height for each pixel, the height having a minimum value;
• discriminating in the digital image for each pixel a relief part, a white part and a skin part, the parts constituting the height of the pixel and the relief part comprising an arbitrary colorant composition, the white part comprising a number of colorants including a white colorant and the skin part comprising colorants according to a color as defined by the color information for each pixel;
• providing an inking mask comprising a binary image of areas of the substrate intended to be finished after printing and areas of the substrate not intended to be finished after printing;
• image processing of the digital image by applying the inking mask to the image, wherein the height of a pixel within an area of the substrate intended to be finished after printing is reduced by substantially reducing a height of the relief part of said pixel, and wherein the height of a pixel within an area of a substrate not intended to be finished after printing is left unchanged;
• and
• printing the processed image obtained in the step of image processing on the substrate,
• wherein a finishing action in the area intended to be finished after printing is at least one out of a fold, a crease, a bending and a cut of the substrate.