1. A process, starting with a specified color in a CIE derived colorspace, for rendering an inking which includes color compression for out-of-gamut colors wherein each color is rendered with a subset of inks selected from a said set of n inks where n is an integer greater than 4; said process comprising the steps of: subdividing the set n inks into k subsets of ink groupings wherein k is an integer less than n; any given subset contains m.sub.j integer number of inks selected from a superset of n inks; where the subscript j denotes a particular subset (the j-th subset) in the overall set of k subsets and whose range is: 1.ltoreq.j.ltoreq.k; characterizing a transformation from inkings to color for each of the k ink subsets; and generate an inking derived from one of the k ink subsets containing m.sub.j inks, such that the inking is a colorimetric match to the specified color for colors within the n ink gamut or represents the closest color in the metric of the input colorspace for colors outside of the n ink color gamut.