What is colorime trical tone value increase (col. TVI)?

A historical journey Why densitometry?

When trying to explain the differences between the old-fashion, densitometer based TVI (dot gain is a deprecated,
since there are many mechanical and optical reasons why a tone value is often rendered darker then the nominal
are coverage) one has to go back to history.
The primary aim of densitometry is to monitor the amount of colorant per area on a print. For a halftone print this
is a function of the ink film thickness and tone values. However, densitometry is also used for the determination of
other process control quantities. A distinctly different task is the evaluation of the density ranges of colour
separation input material. Historically, colour densitometers for reflection type material were first used in
preparation for colour separation for determining the density ranges of continuous-tone, coloured original artwork,
as measured through the filters used for colour separation. As the quality of the printed products improved,
however, reflection densitometers were also applied to process control in printing. Here, the areas measured consist
typically of single-colour patches contained in control strips, printed with the process colours cyan, magenta,
yellow and black. It was also found that the readings obtained from densitometers with a means for crosspolarisation to minimise the influence of first-surface reflection were less affected by ink dry-back.
All of which means that special areas of the wavelength have been used to gain information about how much
colorant (ink film thickness) is on the print, see Fig. 1. In order to do so you pick the wavelength region where the
music plays. In other words, those regions, which change mostly when the colorant (ink film thickness) changes.
Those are portrait in Fig. 2. ISO 5-3 defines different weighting curves for different applications. The printing
relevant ones are called Status E, T and I. Practically they give very similar tone value readings.

Fig . 1: Using dens ity for me asurin g

different in k fil m thic kness.

Fig . 2: E ach p rim ary co lour h as an

optim al spect ral range.

From solid densities to Tone Value Increase (TVI)

In order to measure the tone reproduction, i.e. the tonal response (CIEY) of the primary colours from 0 % to 100 %,
the graphic arts industry is using the tone value, better known to some as apparent dot area. It is simply the
fraction of the tone response of a halftone dot compared to its solid. Imagine having a placed a rectangle in
InDesign filled with a tone value of 80 % Cyan. If you want to know the tone value on the print you just measure
the density of the paper (e.g. Dpap =0.05), the solid (e.g. Ds=1.15) and the halftone (D40%Cyan=0.76) and using the next
complicate looking formula - voila. The tone value is TV=87,4. Since the density of the paper will be subtracted it
wont have an influence anymore and the tone value is called paper relative (contrary to an absolute tone value
typically used in the USA).
Technically speaking it is an integrated reflectance measurement that combines optical gain, non-uniformities in
the "solid" areas, and variations in absorption at the edges of dots.
Please dont hesitate to comment/criticize/etc to Kraushaar@fogra.org

(10
ToneValue =
(10

DHalftone

10Dpap )

Dsolid

Dpap

10

0.1738 - 0.8913
= 0.8744 *100%
87%
0.0708 - 0.8913

And now you can easily calculate the difference (normally an increase) between the tone value in the digital file
(TVFile=80 %) and in the print (TVPrint=87 %) to TVI = 87 % -80 % )= 7 % (see also Table 2).

Ergo 1:
The tone value increase is a very valuable tool to monitor the relative changes in tone reproduction of an image as
it moved through the various stages of data preparation (film reproduction: positive and negative), to a printing
plate, and eventually to the printed image. It was created to check the tone response for single colorant ink film
layers! That means that you can measure a TVI of 50 % Red (CMYK=0,50,50,0) but it makes no sense. For process
control it reliably helps to establish similar printing conditions and indicates very sensitively press problems. The
underlying concept in ISO 12647-2 is that, once the correct process colour solids and two-colour solid overprints
are achieved, a satisfactory overall result can be reached by simply matching the achieved tone value curve to the
specified tone value curve for each printing primary.
Does density and tone value relate to what we see?
As said before the tone values are a very good measure of relative changes in tone reproduction, also called tonality
characteristic, but it is colour blind. Imagine using two different yellows (a warn and a cool one); the tone value
of a midtone might be the same but the apparent hue shift would be easily visible. In the absence of a colorimeter,
densitometers may only serve for colour assessment purposes in process control in a comparative way (when using
the same ink and the same paper).
So why colorimetrical TVI at all?
When the printer setup his machine by means of a standard printing conditions - he uses a densitometer and
adjust the TVI according to the pertinent aims (e.g. TVI=13% @40% for PT1/2 in ISO 12647-2 reflected by
FOGRA39). When printing test charts such as the IT.8-7/4 (ISO 12642-2) one can measure the resulting CIELAB
values with a colorimeter (or a spectrophotometer) and combines the world of process control and image
perception (colour appearance). As part of the introduction of digital technology, the printing industries (and its
standards activities) have begun to establish reference characterization data corresponding to various printing
specifications and conditions. Characterization data is generally defined as the relationship between the CMYK
digital input values (in the data file exchanged) and the measured colorimetric values for the colour printed in
response to these values.
In case you only have a set of such characterization data it is not possible to derive the underlying tone values
anymore. This needs spectral measurements, which are mostly not stored in the characterization data since they
have been lost by the data manipulating steps. That means for printers who have to print according to a given
characterization dataset (without the reference to a densitometrical defined printing condition, where status
density data (simple densitometers) is usually more available) they dont know how to set up the printing condition.
While you can solve this problem by simply measuring the status quo and do the rest with colour management
normally the printer is asking for tone value curve.
Why not simply use CIEXYZ values instead of densities?
If you compare the density weights of Status E or T (which are identical but for the blue filter the one you take
for measuring yellow) with the colour matching functions (the ones you need to compute the CIEXYZ values) one
might see great similarities, see Fig. 3. Using the pertinent tristimulus values one can compute the colorimetrical
tone value as follows:

colorimetrical _ ToneValue = 100 

(R
R ) ,
(R
R )
pap

Halftone

pap

Where R is the reflectance (CIEXYZ value). For Cyan instead of using the red filter for density CIEX should be used.
Further CIEY will be used for Magenta and Black as well as CIEZ for yellow respectively.

Please dont hesitate to comment/criticize/etc to Kraushaar@fogra.org

Fig . 3: Comp arison of St atus I wei ghts (n arrow b ands) and the CI E colou r matching
functions .

Why should I bother with differentiating between densitometric and colorimetrical TV(I)?
Because there might be differences due to two governing factors.
First the measurement mode for measuring densities is often by means of a polarization filter, where colorimetrical
values are mostly based on so called No-Filter modes (called M0 with respect to ISO 13655). Those differences are
therefore very prominent for wet prints and can be almost neglected for dry prints.
Second the differences are caused by difference in the spectral weighting functions. For magenta and yellow the
tone value differences are typically up to 1%. While the CIEY function is identical to the visual density function
the results are identical (when using the same measurement mode) the CIEX function significantly differs in shape
compared with the red density weighting function used for the Cyan density. It should be noted that there are
additional correction factors but the overall complexity will be increased significantly. Finally the differences
should be illustrated in Table 2 by means of a tint ramp ranging from paper white to 100 % cyan. Here a
characterization data set has been downloaded from the free of charge Fogra characterization data repository
(http://forschung.fogra.org/plugin.php?menuid=190&template=mv/templates/mv_search_front_onemv.html&mv_id
=1&onemv=1&getlang=en).
In Conclusion 2:
Congratulations for making it so far

After reading these lines you should note that the colorimetrical and the densitometrical tone value (and tone
value increase) are principally different things,. While the (traditional) densitometrical method is used to
characterize the tone value reproduction of single colorant halftone dots the colorimetrical tone value can be
expressed as a tone response measure (irrespectively of the underlying composition of colorants and screening).
It is not recommended to mix both!
However if you (have to) do this, please be very cautious and try to identify the potential pitfalls as described
above.

Please dont hesitate to comment/criticize/etc to Kraushaar@fogra.org

Densitometry
Diff.
TV Density
TV
dens.
col
TV

TVI
File
(Dr)
Print
TVI
TVI Print
0
0,05
0,0
0
0
0
0
10
0,11
15,1
5
1
4 14,0
20
0,18
28,7
9
2
7 27,0
30
0,27
43,5
13
2
12 41,6
40
0,35
54,3
14
2
12 52,1
50
0,44
64,9
15
2
13 62,8
60
0,56
75,1
15
2
13 73,4
70
0,65
81,3
11
1
10 79,9
80
0,76
87,4
7
1
6 86,4
90
0,93
94,3
4
1
4 93,8
100
1,15 100,0
0
0
0
100

Colorimetry
CIEX
84,13
75,01
66,48
56,95
50,05
43,07
36,13
31,88
27,64
22,82
18,77

CIEY

CIEZ

CIEL*

CIEa*

CIEb*

86,3

69,3

94,4

1,8

1,8

78,7

67,7

91,1

-1,7

-2,6

71,3

66,1

87,6

-5,0

-7,1

62,9

63,7

83,4

-8,8

-12,1

56,8

62,5

80,1

-12,2

-16,7

50,5

60,7

76,4

-15,9

-21,3

44,0

58,4

72,2

-19,7

-26,2

40,0

57,3

69,4

-22,5

-29,8

35,9

55,9

66,5

-25,8

-33,5

31,4

54,5

62,8

-30,5

-38,3

27,4

53,3

59,4

-35,0

-42,9

Table 1: Cy an Ramp. Exem pl ary c alcul ati on of the densitometri c tone value (TV ) and th ough
dens. T VI (left ) and c olo rimetr ical tone value an d though col . TVI ( Rig ht). Rather t o
show the difference in t one value the d ifferences in TVI h ave been por tr ayed TV I
(centre) . The CI EL AB and CIE YZ values are shown for info rmation .

Please dont hesitate to comment/criticize/etc to Kraushaar@fogra.org