The HP Designjet printer will calibrate itself by printing and then evaluating a page with a series of color gradients that allow analysis of the available colors on the printer to determine if the machine is behaving to linear standards. The printer has a builtin colorimeter that is mounted on the ink system carriage. In its evaluation of the inks, the printer feeds the test print in and out of the printer several times to measure the patches that have been printed.
Four-color HP Designjet printers produce a test pattern consisting of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Six-color HP Designjet printers generate a six-color set of these targets. The purpose of these targets is to provide the machine with feedback as to its color printing performance.
Calibration process:
Print calibration patterns
Read light cyan; yellow; cyan; magenta; light magenta; black
Calibration complete
Patterns of grayscale steps in each of the printer's colors allow the printer to calibrate itself. This example is a pattern set for a four-color HP Designjet printer.