There is no question that the Nd:YAG laser is the overall workhorse and reigning champ when it comes to laser tattoo removal. Its reliability, speed and color range make it the overall best laser to use, if one has only one laser at hand. Some tattoos, however, such as sky blue and green, are difficult to remove with just the YAG laser alone. This is in part due to the wavelength at which light is absorbed by the pigments in green and blue ink. Blue ink absorbs much less light from a 1064 nanometer YAG laser beam than from a 694 nanometer Ruby laser. This makes the ruby laser a more effective laser for certain colors, such as green and blue.
Although the popular Medlite C6 comes with additional filters that are aimed at the removal of green and blue inks, such filters are really limited in what they can do over and above the basic YAG system. The YAG does have a frequency-doubling function that allows 532 nanometer light to emerge from the same laser which treats red and brown inks very well.
Thus, a combination of ruby and YAG lasers would be expected to effectively target nearly all inks used in tattooing today, except for yellow, fluorescent, and bright pink.
Tattoo MD Laser Clinic has been using the Rubystar laser in addition to the Medlite Nd:YAG laser to make our laser tattoo removal that much more effective. Although not every tattoo can be removed with any laser, we feel that we are at the limit of currently available technology for tattoo removal. This combination of laser therapy is uncommon and hard to find!