GLOSS DYNAMICS OF INKJET PRINTS BY

Inkjet printing is a popular non-impact technology with widespread use in home and ofice applications. The basic principle involves propelling ink drops of different colors on a substrate. High quality images, near photographic quality, are now possible. The gloss of the printed substrate is an important quality attribute. Printed gloss depends on a number of characteristics of the media and the ink, but a good fundamental understanding is not available in the literature. The dependence of the gloss on the media and ink characteristics is reported in this work. The experimental results are compared with values predicted by a mathematical model. The dynamic post-printing gloss was studied with a specially constructed apparatus, which measured the laser reflectance of the printed surface within 40 ms after drop impact. Both pigmented and dye-based inks are used with rapidly absorbing porous media and swelling polymer-coated media. Various properties of the media such as surface roughness, ink absorption rates, pore size distribution, oil absorption capacity, wettability, and gloss wer