Patent ID: 9462162
Filing Date: 2016-10-04
CPC Classification: B41F,B41P,G03G,H04N

Claim Text:
1. A method to control a color printer or color copier, comprising the steps of: applying a color separation of a first color and a color separation of a second color to a printing substrate to be printed to in order to generate a print image; also, with aid of a printing unit, printing at least a first control field on the printing substrate, wherein the first control field has a predetermined pattern that includes at least the first color and the second color and is designed such that a color value of the first control field changes depending on a registration error between the first and the second color separations; also printing a reference field on the same printing substrate, the reference field having a predetermined pattern including at least the first color and the second color, wherein the pattern of the reference field is designed such that a degree of superposition of the first and the second colors of the pattern of said reference field remains constant independent of the registration error such that the pattern of the reference field has a same color value independent of the registration error; measuring the color value of the first control field with aid of a color value sensor; also measuring the color value of the reference field with aid of the color value sensor and determining a desired color value depending on the color value of the reference field; determining a deviation between the measured color value of the first control field and the desired color value, the deviation corresponding to a spatial shift of the color separations; and generating at least one control signal to reduce said spatial shift of the color separations depending on the determined deviation.