A method for reducing the effect of defective printing nozzles in a multicolor printing process on an inkjet printing machine. A computer creates a color transformation table that, for every process color of the inkjet printing machine, includes a replacement combination of the respective other process colors with a minimum color distance to the process color in question. The color transformation table is used to compensate for a defective printing nozzle. The color transformation table is created by printing and measuring a test chart with all process colors and interpolated by the computer. The color transformation table is then optimized to avoid undesired transitions between supporting points of the color transformation table and the resultant color transformation table accordingly contains process color combinations with minimum sensitivity to defective printing nozzles and the optimized table is used to carry out the multicolor printing operation on the inkjet printing machine.