TransWikia.com

How can I compare histograms between a digital image and it’s print

Photography Asked by Pablo Carneiro Elias on July 25, 2021

I want to compare color histograms between a digital photo and its physically printed in cloth (like a T-shirt) version. The process is simple:

  1. Printing a digital image (with good resolution) in a T-shirt
  2. Take a picture of that printed T-shirt in proper alignment and crop
  3. Compare histograms

As one might expect, the color histogram of the photo of the printed T-shirt is very different from the original image, as it should be. What I want to know is if there is any known method to achieve one of the following:

  1. From original digital image, transform colors so to be closer to printed colorspace histogram.
  2. From printed T-shirt photo, try to normalize or transform in some way to achieve back original colors.

I am aware that the color distribution of the printed T-shirt depend also on the camera that captures it. Right now I am thinking of training a ML model to try to learn the color transformation between two colors distributions (original and physically printed).

However, I wonder if there is some literature about that or some procedure I can perform using my camera to try to find that color transformation so I can apply to other prints.

My goal is to generalize (predict) the printed color distribution transformation from original digital image. As I’m always using the same printer for print, and the same camera for the photo of the T-shirt, I guess this should be feasible.

Thanks in advance.

One Answer

The industry standard method would use two transforms encoded as ICC profiles. The input device would use an mapping from its color characteristics to the Profile Connection Space. Likewise the output would use a mapping from the Profile Connection Space to its output color space.

This is the standard because it allowed for connecting any input device to any output device.

Going backwards from the print isn’t really possible in a direct way. You need an input device (such as a camera or scanner) to capture an image of the print. And then you are dependent on its ICC profile (or a logical equivalent) to get back into Profile Connection Space.

That is not to say you can’t do it…that’s what printer profiling hardware does.

Anyway, the way to do the sort of things you want to do is available off the shelf from companies such as Xrite and DataColor using ICC profiles. It is not cheap. But it is as cheap as it gets.

Answered by Bob Macaroni McStevens on July 25, 2021

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question

Get help from others!

© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP