Multilevel density compensation for digital printing machines

A method for correcting color density unevenness during a printing operation on an inkjet printing machine having printing nozzles and a computer, which comprises the steps of:

• modifying, via the computer, a number or size of drops to be applied to a printing substrate after a processing of a rasterized print image to attain nominal color density values;
• determining, for different actual tone values, which target tone value is required to attain a nominal coloration by measuring a test image for every printing nozzle using a color measurement device;
• and
• determining an area coverage-dependent compensation profile based on the target tone value and saving the area coverage-dependent compensation profile on the computer to be applied during the printing operation to calculate the number and/or the size of the drops on the computer.