Patent ID: 8228559

Claim:
A method for characterizing color separation misregistration of a multi-color printing system, the method comprising: generating a spectral reflectance data structure corresponding to a broadband multichannel scanning module, wherein the spectral reflectance data structure includes at least one parameter, wherein the at least one parameter is an approximation of at least one of a substrate scattering coupling matrix associated with scattering of light reflected from the substrate and Yule-Nielsen parameters and includes an approximation of a combined quantum efficiency of the scanning module calculated by a combined quantum efficiency module, wherein the combined quantum efficiency module utilizes a first equation of ŝ i =arg min s i ∥y i −Rs i ∥ 2 2 +α i ∥Ls i ∥ 2 2 , wherein y i ε N×1 , L ε 31×31 is the Laplacian operator that provides a penalty on the roughness of s i , and α i are regularization parameters; calibrating a spectral-based analysis module by utilizing the spectral reflectance data structure; and characterizing color separation misregistration utilizing the calibrated spectral-based analysis module by examining at least one color misregistration patch.