Microscopic Image and Text Examination of Conventional and Digital Printouts

Abstract

The widespread use of printers and computers has led to an increase in the use of print documents in daily life. Mass print and automatic print quality evaluation is necessary in the fast print process to avoid the quality defect immediately when it appears. Furthermore, in many cases, print materials are dangerous tools for many criminal and terrorist acts. For instance, there were accounts of forged contracts before which led to the implementation of print identification. With the technology that is evolving for both conventional and digital printing, it is easy to lose track of the many processes and the many variables in each process. Digital printouts often appear similar. Nevertheless, comparing digital and conventional printouts can be confusing. This research aims to examine digital and conventional printouts and investigate whether digital printouts are significantly different than conventional printouts which can then be used for management and control purposes. Prior efforts to characterize digital and conventional printouts have been made. Microscopic examinations were employed in order to evaluate the printout quality and identify the source of the printouts intelligently; with the use of stereo microscope that provides a magnified view (up to approximately 20× 40×) of its edges and surface, additional information will be gathered. The print identification checklist was employed to keep track of the observations during identification. The experimental results are presented and analyzed. Based on the findings, stereo microscopic examination reveals that every printing process has its own strength and weaknesses. This revelation helps the researcher to classify the printing processes according to its potential application.