A
pigment dispersion includes a color
pigment and a polymeric dispersant having at least one pending
chromophore group covalently bound to the polymeric backbone of the polymeric dispersant through a linking groupwhereinthe color
pigment is selected from the group consisting of monoazo pigments, disazo pigments, β-naphtol pigments, naphtol AS pigments, azo pigment lakes, benzimidazolone pigments, disazo condensation pigments,
metal complex pigments, isoindolinone pigments, isoindolinine pigments,
phthalocyanine pigments,
quinacridone pigments, diketopyrrolo-
pyrrole pigments, thioindigo pigments,
anthraquinone pigments, anthrapyrimidine pigments, indanthrone pigments, flavanthrone pigments, pyranthrone pigments, anthanthrone pigments, isoviolanthrone pigments,
aluminium pigment lakes, dioxazine pigments, triarylcarbonium pigments and quinophthalone pigments;the at least one pending
chromophore group has a molecular weight which is smaller than 85% of the molecular weight of the color pigment;the at least one pending
chromophore group occurs as a side group on the polymeric backbone and not as a group in the polymeric backbone itself or occurring solely as an
end group of the polymeric backbone;the linking group consists of all the atoms between the polymeric backbone and the first atom of the aromatic group by which the pending chromophore group is linked to the polymeric backbone; andthe at least one pending chromophore group has a similarity coefficient SIM of at least 0.75, with the similarity coefficient defined by:SIM=t·CM+P-Cwherein,M represents the number of atoms in the at least one pending chromophore group;P represents the number of atoms in the color pigment;C represents the largest number of atoms in common between the at least one pending chromophore group and the color pigment as one continuous structure; andt is an integer representing the number of times that the largest number of atoms in common C fits into the organic color pigment, without using atoms of the color pigment twice. A method for preparing the
pigment dispersion wherein the polymeric dispersant is prepared by copolymerizing a
monomer already containing the pending chromophore group is also disclosed.