A selection method of characteristic color samples based on color correlation was put forward. The color correlation factors between colorant amount distributions of characteristic color samples were used to select a part of color samples having similar colorant amount distributions from the massive characteristic color samples generated by the whole CMYKGO gamut sampling; the optimum color samples after selection were used to establish color separation model. On the premise of not influencing the color separation precision, the new method can reduce the number of characteristic color samples effectively, and all colorants in dark regions are efficiently used, so it can reappearance larger color gamut than conventional method.