Patent ID: 6848768

Claim:
A method of predicting colors resulting from using one ink on a printer, said method comprising the steps of: producing a test page for said printer, said test page comprising a plurality of sample ink patches, each said patch comprising a plurality of ink dots according to a predetermined ratio for each patch, said predetermined ratios being based on a number of dots printed for a corresponding patch compared to a maximum number of dots; measuring each of said sample ink patches to produce a plurality of color space coordinates for each said patch; and fitting values representing a number of dots for each said patch and said color space coordinates to a plurality of predetermined functions using a minimization process in order to predict said colors, wherein said predetermined functions are of the form P x (1−f x (a))+I x f x (a); P y (1−f y (a))+I y f y (a); P z (1−f z (a))+I z f z (a); where a represents a number of dots for a particular patch, f x (a), f y (a) and f z (a) are functions of a, and wherein P x , P y , and P z are color space components representing a paper color, and I x , I y , and I z are color space components representing the ink color.