Paper related Color Reproduction Models in Ink Jet Printing

The interaction of ink and paper requires better models to be fully understood. Multi spectral analysis of the interaction using Kubelka-Munkbased theory reveals that the color reproduction in its simplest form, full-tone printing, is very complex in its behavior. The problem to understand what happens in a normal situation with reproduction of natural color images involves dot-gain that makes the problem even more difficult to understand. This paper discusses the problems of color reproduction with emphasis on the complex dot gain process that occurs in mixed halftones. The color reproduction properties of a printing process and its attainable color gamut are in many ways more dependant on the paper quality than on other factors. The surface properties of the paper, gloss for example, and the degree to which color penetrates into the paper through the pores are of fundamental importance. In ink-jet printing models have been proposed that describes some of these phenomena quite closely in the situation of full-tone color printing assumptions. Taking a further step requires the models to encompass also the dot-gain behavior of the process when halftones are used.