Characterization of Ink Properties in Ink Jet Printing

The ink-jet printing quality is primarily determined by the paper substrate, the printer and its inks. The printer controls the process of ink application and the scheme of ink mixing for the generation of secondary and tertiary colours. The inks selectively absorb different wavelengths from the illumination and produce the visible colour output. Therefore characterizations of the output print in terms of ink distribution and volume, the scheme of ink-mixing, light absorption and light scattering are of essential importance in controlling and understanding the quality of the colour reproduction. In this paper, we present a method to characterize the ink volume and the properties of the ink by means of spectral reflectance measurements together with theoretical simulations. The scheme of colour composition for generating the secondary colours were also obtained. Measurements confirm the model for rendition of colour prints.