A printing system is disclosed. The printing system includes at least one physical memory device to store compensation logic and one or more processors coupled with the at least one physical memory device to execute the compensation logic to receive measurement data corresponding to a print medium printed with a plurality of pel forming elements in adjacent printheads and a plurality of tint levels, wherein the plurality of pel forming elements comprise gap adjacent pel forming elements that print with applied compensation halftone design and non-gap adjacent pel forming elements, associate measurement data values with the gap adjacent pel forming elements, the applied compensation halftone design and the plurality of tint levels and determine optimal compensation by selecting the compensation halftone design that has corresponding measurement data values closest to compensation target values for each of the plurality of tint levels.