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17 Light Stability Characteristics of Contone Ink Jet Printing Systems- The Effect of Printing With Dots

This paper investigates the light stability characteristics of continuous tone ink jet printing systems, focusing on the impact of varying dot sizes and ink amounts on fading. It presents experimental data showing that lighter ink regions fade more rapidly than heavier inked areas, and highlights the significant role of internal reflectance and edge effects in the fading process. The findings suggest that traditional light stability methods may need to be adapted for discrete dot digital techniques.

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2 views

17 Light Stability Characteristics of Contone Ink Jet Printing Systems- The Effect of Printing With Dots

This paper investigates the light stability characteristics of continuous tone ink jet printing systems, focusing on the impact of varying dot sizes and ink amounts on fading. It presents experimental data showing that lighter ink regions fade more rapidly than heavier inked areas, and highlights the significant role of internal reflectance and edge effects in the fading process. The findings suggest that traditional light stability methods may need to be adapted for discrete dot digital techniques.

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qgq13818942025
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Light Stability Characteristics of

Contone Ink Jet Printing Systems


The Effect of Printing with Dots
Donald R. Allred* and Nathaniel R. Schwartz
IRIS Graphics, Inc. Bedford, Massachusetts

Abstract methods—adding a UV protective laminate, coating, or


glass, posting the image away from direct light, etc. How-
High quality continuous tone ink jet images are produced ever, when fading has occurred, the very light shades, such
by varying the dot size in small steps, and printing at as flesh tones will show a greater visible decline than
high dot placement resolutions (300 dpi). These inks heavier inked regions. We have attempted to quantify,
are typically dye based, and as such have limited light explain, and offer additional observations of this effect.
stability. The light stability characteristics are signifi-
cantly different depending upon how much ink is placed Experimental Description
in a single pixel element. This paper demonstrates the
significant difference in behavior, offers a solution, and Step wedge images were produced on a high quality
provides data to support the solution. contone printer (Iris Graphics 3024). These step wedges
vary the amount of ink placed in each pixel in the fol-
Introduction lowing manner - 5%, 10%, 20%, ... 90%, 100%. The im-
age was printed on a gelatin coated paper and subjected
High quality ink jet printers, such as those manufactured to accelerated fading of a total of 30 kJ/cm2 of light with
by Iris Graphics, provide continuous tone - photo realis- 280 and 310 nm cutoff filters using a Sunchex fadometer
tic prints. These printers, when linked to a high pow- (Atlas). This setup is used to simulate direct sunlight
ered workstation in a prepress environment, provide a through a window pane. This process was repeated with
color matched proof which can be used to monitor pro- different media and inks of different dye concentration
duction press color consistency. Once the press run is and measurements taken at 10 kJ/cm2 intervals. 10 kJ/
complete, the proof may be discarded. However, as this cm2 is approximately 25 hours of Sunchex operation.
market progresses, as well in other high quality contone
printing markets, the need to keep or display the print Results and Discussion
increases. Thus putting the light stability of these im-
ages into question. The fading characteristic of one yellow ink is represented
The high quality ink jet printers described here use in Figure 1. The measurements are represented in CIELab
a patented technology which jets a continuous stream of DE*. CIELab DE* is the Euclidian distance between two
20 micron diameter drops at a rate of 1 million per sec- colors in CIELab* colorspace. The CIELab DE* was vir-
ond per nozzle. The inks used are typically water soluble tually completely due to changes in the positive b* compo-
organic dyes, and as such suffer from fading when ex- nent. One can see that the fading characteristics seem to be
posed to light for a period of time. These printers also divided into two regions. The first region—that of lower
generate density variations by varying the amount of ink ink amount—fades at a considerably more rapid pace than
placed in a given pixel. This can be varied from 1 to 31 the second region—that of high ink amounts. In fact,
of these micro droplets per color per pixel. Thus the when examining the dot patterns closely, it appears that
printed dot size can vary from about 25 microns up to the difference is directly related to the amount of “white”
about 500 microns. A specific color is created by calcu- space visible. One could quickly suggest that the differ-
lating the amount of each necessary to achieve the hue ences are due to the amount of dye available in the space or
and chroma necessary. internal reflectance of light within the gel coated paper.
Images that are exposed to light—visible and ultra-
violet will fade. This fading can be reduced by the usual The Effect of Transparent and Reflective Media
Two different media, one transparent (IRIS Trans-
parency) and the other an opaque gel coated paper (IRIS
Originally published in Proc. of IS&T’s 47th Annual Confer- Semi-Matte) - were printed with the same step pattern
ence: The Physics and Chemistry of Imaging Systems, May and subjected to the same light stability testing. How-
15-20, 1994, Rochester, New York. ever, the transparent film was backed with black paper

106—Recent Progress in Ink-Jet Technologies


to reduce the amount of reflection. The results depicted pared, effectively diluting the dye concentration to 20%
in Figure 2 show a pronounced effect. Areas of the same of the control ink used above. When printed in the same
amount of ink (20%), where the dots are distinct and manner described above, the 100% ink level provided a
separated from other dots, showed a significantly larger region density roughly equivalent to the 20% dot level
fade in the reflective paper than the transparent film. of the control ink. The light stability of the lower dye
After only 10 kJ/cm^2 of lighting, a 54.6% benefit is ob- concentration ink (at 100% ink level) was very signifi-
served on the transparent film. By the 30 kJ/cm^2 mark, cantly better than the control ink (at 20% ink level)- Fig-
the difference has diminished to a 42.5% benefit, indicat- ure 4. The lower concentration dye faded only one third
ing the rapid initial decline of the reflective film image. that of the higher concentration dye at similar densities.

50
45 50
40 40
35
30
25
30
20 20
15 10
D l 10
5 0
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10
0 Exposure (kJ/cm^2)
Percent Dot (%)
Figure 3. IS&T Ink 1 @ 100% dot
Figure 1. IS&T Ink 1 from 5% to 100%

1
50 0.8
0.6
40 0.4
0.2
30 0

20 0 10 20 30

10 Exposure (kJ/cm^2)
Figure 4. IS&T Ink 1 vs. IS&T Ink 2 at Equal Density
0
0 10 20 30
Conclusions
Exposure (kJ/cm^2)

Figure 2. IS&T Ink 1 @ 20% dot Internal reflectance plays a significant role in the fad-
ing of images created by discrete dots. Furthermore, the
If one then compares the 100% dot region of the edge effects are the major source of the light that ac-
reflective and transparent media in Figure 3, we see the celerates fading. This is a major difference between
differences are significantly reduced. In fact the differ- analog imaging methods and discrete dot digital tech-
ences measured are nearly the same. This would suggest niques. The light stability methods currently published
that internal reflectance, predominantly around the edges have been developed by and for the film industry. New
play a major role in the fade mechanism of these prints. or modified methods are necessary to describe differ-
Additional support for the edge reflectance theory ences, such as this edge effect, specific to discrete dot
is provided by the following. An additional ink was pre- digital techniques.

Chapter 2—Continuous Ink Jet—107

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