A reproduction for producing a multi-color printing on printing stock, wherein the multi-color printing is composed of a plurality of elemental areas to which ink is applied comprising the steps of dividing a picture surface into sub-surfaces of identical size, dividing every sub-surface into juxtaposed elemental areas so that each sub-surface has a chromatic component and an achromatic component so that a desired color nuance is obtained at a particular selected sub-surface, the chromatic portion of said sub-surface is further divided into juxtaposed rectangular sub-sections and each of said sub-sections being printed with only one color, printing the sub-sections of said elemental areas which form the chromatic component with a maximum of two of six chromatic printing inks, said inks comprising yellow, orange-red, magenta-red, violet-blue, cyan blue, green and black depending on the chromatic nuance which is to be produced, and printing so that the relative sizes of the white and black elemental areas are varied according to the achromatic component.