Analysis of Color Measurement Methods for Single-sided and Double-sided Digital Printing with Silk Fabrics

Digital printing is a new technology that combines innovative design with cutting-edge technology, and it represents a breakthrough in the field of dyeing and finishing. Silk is the most widely used medium among double-sided digital printing industry. Owing to the gaps caused by different weaving methods, silk products are generally translucent and loose in structure, therefore, the color measurement of textile fabrics also has the same problem as that of translucent materials. The final color visualization is the result of combining the fabric yarn color with the voids in the area, which make it difficult to directly measure the colors of the printed fabrics with traditional spectrophotometer. The color measurement method of double-sided digital printing was always vague, and the difficulty of measuring the color of double-sided digital printing is increased for silk, a translucent material.

In this paper, sixty colors of different hues, chroma and lightness are printed on four different types of silk fabrics in order to solve this industry problem. The L∗ (Lightness), a∗ (Red/Green) and b∗ (Blue/Yellow)values of each color layer were measured after stacking the four types of fabrics from one to multiple layers respectively and placing them on top of a standard white board and a standard black board as a backing, respectively, to calculate the color difference between the actual color and the design color of the silk fabric, as well as the color difference before and after stacking. The fabric properties and color properties that influence fabric color measurement are then investigated. The results show that thickness is the most important factor influencing fabric color measurement, and during measuring thin fabrics, multiple layers need to be overlaid. The effect of gloss on the number of layers in fabric color measurement is inversely proportional. The b∗ value is not significantly correlated with color measurement, whereas L∗ and a∗ are positively correlated with the number of layers when measuring color. Moreover, based on the fabric thickness, gloss, L∗, a∗ and b∗ value, the regression model was proposed, and a color measurement method suitable for silk fabrics with different fabric properties and color properties is proposed.