Described herein is a method to encode infrared (IR) security watermarks using a named color dictionary within a PDL in a device independent manner. A set of colors is chosen that lies within the common gamut of printing devices and then defined in a device-independent color space. For each color and output device, a metameric pair of device colorant values corresponding to minimum and maximum black (K) is obtained using inversion techniques. These extremes are selected in order to obtain the maximum perceivable IR signal. The metameric pair sets are processed to extract a smaller subset that satisfies certain criteria, including bounds on the K difference, total ink area coverage, and deviation from the neutral axis. The final data is then stored in resource files that link fixed device-independent IR color names to pairs of variable device-dependent colorant values.