Color Reproduction on Shrink Sleeves

Wrapping heat-deformable plastic labels around packages relies on a shrinking process. Shrinking plastic labels distorts not only the shape but also the color of the printed artwork. In this work, we analyze and model the color shifts induced by shrinkage. The ultimate goal is to generate full color images which after shrinking have colors as close as possible to the original colors. For this purpose, we present a thickness enhanced Clapper-Yule prediction model. Its calibration requires spectral measurements of original, non-shrunk samples as well as the measured shrinking factors. With the prediction model, we establish a table creating the correspondences between target colors after shrinking and ink area coverages. This enables creating color images which after shrinking match the original images.