Total ink limit.

The total ink limit is the cap on the sum of all channel values at any single point in the image, written as a percentage and often called TAC, for total area coverage. It belongs to calibration rather than to profiling, and it is not the first step: Fiery XF limits the ink per channel first, reduces the total ink limit next, and implements a custom media profile last, because a profile measured on a press that is already over-inked measures the flooding as if it were color. The headroom is larger than it sounds and the usable figure much smaller: an eight-channel printer has a theoretical maximum of 800%, while what a garment will physically accept is a fraction of it. On textile the penalty arrives fast, and ONYX names the artifacts of too much ink plainly as ink bleed, an embossed or raised look, a picture frame appearance, or a glossy or dull appearance; add to that a plastic hand, ink the tunnel never fully cures, and wash-fastness that fails on a shirt which looked perfect coming off the dryer. Set it too low and you throw away gamut you already paid for, with grey blacks and saturated colors that never arrive. The number belongs to one combination of ink, substrate, resolution and cure, so a limit copied from a vendor media profile onto a different blank is a reprint waiting for its first wash test.