How to calculate Dot Gain of density values

General Color & Graphics Press Calibration & Profiling
1

Dear Master,

How to calculate dot gain of density values

For example:

C : 100 0 0 0 density–> 1.835
C : 90 0 0 0 density–> 1.716

I don’t have any dot gain concept, could you give an advice.

another question:
Does the dot gain and dot area are different?

Thanks for helping

2

There is a nice summary of dot gain in the color glossary at our ColorWiki site:
colorwiki.com/wiki/Dot_Gain

Your example shows a couple of high cyan CMYK values and some corresponding density values, but I am not sure what your question is?

Please note first of all, that a CMYK number combination is not actually a color. So you would probably need some kind of Lab value (or spectral numbers) in order to calculate some kind of density equivalent. Some of us have already mentioned (in other posts) the Bruce Lindbloom site for some calculators that can give you density calculations.

Dot gain refers to the size increase of a dot when it gets put onto paper.
Dot area merely refers to the measured value of your color patch.

If you were measuring a 90% cyan patch and it measured at 94%, then you would have a 4% dot gain, and the dot area would be 94%.

If you want more details, X-Rite has a whole paper on this subject:
xrite.com/documents/apps/pub … 00005a.pdf