Color is a phenomenon of physical perception of eyes.

Eyes register the color in the brain and

this results in the formation of associate of that color shade for that particular product. Shade
variation in the color can result in rejection of the job as it can be considered as a fake
counterpart, so whenever a job has to be printed, customer demands the exact shade of the colors
to be reproduced in the final print. Reproducing with exact color shade helps in maintaining the
brand image of the particular product and also helps to recognize that particular product. Many
factors influences the shade variation of printed color like type of substrate, ink used, printing
process implied, prepress settings etc.
The type of substrate is a very basic parameter which influences the shades variation. The
substrate is govern by the factors like coated or uncoated stock. Even if the type of substrate used
is kept constant then also shade variation can occur, and this is where delta E comes into picture
and this serves the need of our project.
The work deals with a comparative study of three sets of coated paper stocks with different
values of brightness, opacity, ISO fluorescence and Lab. The reference stock was selected with a
maximum opacity (96,65 - white shade) while sample 1 with opacity of 96,24 (blue shade) and
sample 2 with opacity of 95,22 (yellow shade), all falling within a tolerable window frame. The
printed sheets for three stocks were matched with the standard densities for cyan, magenta,
yellow and black and measured for Lab values. The color difference was calculated for sample 1
and sample 2. The results showed that sample 1 (blue shade) falling in the acceptable range for
cyan, magenta and black. The sample 2 (yellow shade) falls in acceptable range for black only,
exhibiting higher rejection rate than sample 1 (blue shade).
Thus, to minimize wastage of manufacturer and rejection rate of printed job as well, the printer
should understand the significance of shade variation of paper stock on the printability.