Modeling coverage-dependent ink thickness in ink-jet printing.

We propose a simple extension of the Murray-Davis halftone reflectance model that accounts for the change of ink dot reflectance due to ink spreading. Significant improvement of the prediction accuracy is obtained for a range of paper substrates and printer combinations compared to the classical Yule-Nielsen and Clapper-Yule models. The results show that ink dot thickness dependency is the main factor limiting the validity of the Murray-Davis model and that optical dot gain can be neglected when the model is calibrated for one specific printer, ink, and substrate combination. The proposed model provides a better understanding of the reflectance from halftone prints that contributes to the development of physical models for simpler and faster printer calibration to different substrates.