Patent ID: 8159719

Claim:
In a method for correcting the gray balance of a printing process, which includes imaging printing forms assigned to color separations with at least one test form, and printing at least one printing material with the printing forms in a printing press and calorimetrically measuring the test form printed onto the printing material, the improvement comprising: providing the at least one test form with colored gray areas; building-up the colored gray areas from at least three different non-black process inks; assigning at least three colored gray areas to surroundings of the same nominal gray value within a device-independent color space; causing the tonal values of at least one process ink of the at least three colored gray areas in at least two colored gray areas to deviate from a tonal value assigned to the nominal gray value, so that the colored gray areas have tonal value combinations differing from one another in pairs; determining the color values of the at least three colored gray areas in the device-independent color space after the colorimetric measurement; selecting at least two colored gray areas from the measured colored gray areas; determining at least one corrected tonal value of a non-black chromatic process ink having different tonal values in the selected colored gray areas on the basis of the color values determined for the selected colored gray areas; and recording the corrected tonal value as a corrected set point for the chromatic process ink for the corresponding nominal gray value of the device-independent color space for imaging following printing forms.