Patent ID: 7464645

Claim:
A printing machine comprising: a plurality of independently adjustable machine elements; a corresponding plurality of setting elements for adjusting said plurality of machine elements to affect a quality of printing performed by the printing machine; an optical detection device having a sensor that is directed toward a surface of a printing substrate printed in the printing machine for detecting the quality of the printing on the printing substrate, said optical detection device being configured to simultaneously detect two marks or measurement fields, which are arranged crosswise to the direction of transport of the printing substrate, are incongruent in a spacing or at least in their respective positions, and are simultaneously assigned to a same color patch; a control device that receives data from the optical detection device and uses said setting elements to adjust said machine elements based upon a difference between a quality of the printing that is preset as a target value and a quality of the printing that is detected by the optical detection device as an actual value using an identified change in the spacing between the two marks or measurement fields, crosswise to the direction of transport of the printing substrate, in a manner that serves to minimize the difference between the target value and the actual value; wherein, the adjustment of the different machine elements serves to counteract interfering factors having different causes and different temporal behavior or different surface effects on the printing such that when a difference between the target value and the actual value exists, the control device analyzes the data from the optical detection device with respect to the interfering factor causing the difference, its temporal behavior and/or its surface effect on the printing, and initiates the control operations necessary to achieve the quality of the printing to be produced, these control operations acting upon different ones of the machine elements.