Color Reproduction of Metallic-Ink Images

Abstract

We study the color reproduction of full-color metallic-ink images. Full-color metallic-ink images are prints whose contributing colorants are exclusively made of colored metallic inks. Due to the presence of metallic particles, metallic inks show a metal-like luster. These particles are opaque and hide the underlying ink or substrate. In order to obtain predictable halftone colors, we need a juxtaposed halftoning method to create halftone dots of different colors side by side without overlapping. Juxtaposed halftoning invalidates many assumptions generally made for the color-reproduction workflow. For printing metallic-ink images, one needs a color-separation system creating surface coverages for the eight metallic inks that correspond to the eight Neugebauer primaries. For this purpose, we introduce a simple and fast method for N-color separation that relies either on Demichel’s or on a variant of Kueppers’ ink-to-colorant separations. Thanks to a unique set of ink-to-colorant formulas, pseudo-CMY ink values are separated into amounts of printable colorants. We also describe color-separation procedures that are able to optimize different properties of the resulting metallic-ink images.