Spectral prediction and dot surface estimation models for halftone prints

R.D. Hersch, F. Collaud, F. Crété, P. Emmel

IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging Symposium, Conf. Imaging IX: Processing, Hardcopy and Applications, SPIE Vol. 5293, 2004, pp. 356-369.

We propose a new spectral prediction model as well as new approaches for modeling ink spreading which occurs when printing ink layer superpositions. The spectral prediction model enhances the classical Clapper-Yule model by taking into account the fact that proportionally more incident light through a given colorant surface is reflected back onto the same colorant surface than onto other colorant surfaces. This is expressed by a weighted mean between a component specifying the part of the incident light which exits through the same colorant as the colorant from which it enters (Saunderson corrected Neugebauer component) and a component specifying the part of the incident light whose emerging light components exit from all colorants, with a probability to exit from a given colorant equal to that colorant surface coverage (Clapper-Yule component). We also propose two models for taking into account ink spreading, a phenomenon which occurs when printing an ink halftone in superposition with one or several solid inks. Besides the physical dot gain present within a single ink halftone print, we consider in the first model the ink spreading which occurs when an ink halftone is printed on top of one or two solid inks. In the second more advanced model, we generalize this concept to ink halftones printed on top or below solid inks. We formulate for both ink spreading models systems of equations which allow to compute effective ink coverages as a combination of the individual ink coverages which occur in the different superposition cases. The new spectral prediction model combined with advanced ink spreading yields excellent spectral predictions for clustered-dot color halftone prints, both in the case of offset (75 to 150 lpi) and in the case of thermal transfer printers (50 to 75 lpi).

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