Proof-to-Print Match: Effectiveness of Substrate-Corrected Colorimetric Aims in Soft Proofing

Soft proofing is an effective solution for clients and printers that decreases production cost and cycle time. However, print buyers are increasingly specifying brighter papers, which contain optical brightening agents (OBAs). One potential concern facing adopters of soft proofing systems is that they fail to consider the influence of OBA when rendering color images. Proofing systems are largely based on existing published specifications and their ICC profiles. These specifications and ICC profiles -- such as SWOP 3 and GRACoL 2006-- do not account for the influence of OBA-loaded printing papers, and therefore could cause a mismatch between the soft proof and the final print. To improve the soft proofing performance, it is important to account for the influence of OBA in printed color and in soft proofing. This research project investigated the use of the substrate-corrected colorimetric aims (SCCA) as the source ICC profile to improve proofing color accuracy. By conducting psychometric experiments and analyzing with Chi-Square statistic, the research concludes that (a) OBA causes the mismatch between the default soft proof and the OBA-loaded print; (b) source ICC profiles, built from both a fully characterized dataset and an SCCA solution, can improve color match between the soft proof and the OBA-loaded print; and (c) color match between the soft proof and the print is image-dependent