Abstract: The invention relates to a method and to apparatus for influencing the colour appearance of a coloured area made up of at least three chromatic separation colours in a printing process, on the basis of densitometric or colorimetric measurements, in which the inking is influenced as a matter of priority in at most two chromatic separation colours as a function of the coloured proportion of a sum vector which is determined starting from density value differences or colorimetric difference values in a colour space and broken down into a grey proportion which only affects brightness and a coloured proporation relating to at most two chromatic separation colours. In this way an improved and in particular faster influence on a colour appearance of the coloured area is achieved in a printing process.