Color paintings, color photography and all color printing processes use the subtractive process to reproduce color. In these cases, the reflective substrate is canvas (paintings) or paper (photographs, prints) which is usually white.

For example, printing presses use color inks that act as filters and subtract portions of the white light striking the image on paper to produce other colors.  Printing inks are transparent, which allows

light to pass through to and reflect off of the paper base. It is the paper that reflects any unabsorbed light back to the viewer.  The offset printing process uses cyan, magenta and yellow (CMY) process color inks and a fourth ink, black. The black printing ink is designated K to avoid confusion with B for blue. Overprinting one transparent printing ink with another produces the subtractive secondary colors, red, green and blue

See Figure