Patent ID: 8542418

Claim:
A method of calibrating a print engine of a printing system, the method comprising: printing image data on a print medium; scanning the printed image data; measuring optical densities of color values of the scanned image data identifying tint transition locations of the color values; estimating original optical densities of the identified color value tints; generating a mean optical density for each of the identified color value tints using the estimated original optical densities to determine print irregularities in the color values of the scanned image data; generating a halftone screen based on the measured optical densities and target density levels; and applying the generated halftone screen to the print engine to calibrate the print engine; wherein estimating original optical densities of the identified tints of the color values comprises: generating a point spread function using the color values of the scanned image data to characterize the printing system, the print medium and a scanner; determining optical densities of the identified tints of the color values; and deconvolving the determined optical densities of the identified tints of the color values using the point spread function to generate estimates of the original optical densities of the identified tints.