DIN SPEC 16699 Open Color Communication Final Meeting Berlin. From left to right: Eric A. Soder, Jan-Peter Homann, Matthias Betz, Holger Everding

Last Monday, the authors Jan-Peter Homann, Holger Everding, Eric A. Soder and Matthias Betz took another milestone in the direction of free color communication in a final meeting at the German Institute for Standardization – DIN in Berlin: The last open points of DIN SPEC 16699 “Open Colour Communication” were discussed and approved. Now only the English version by Matthias Betz and Eric A. Soder and the final implementation and approval by DIN are missing. It is expected that DIN SPEC will be available for download in August. It is published free of charge as PAS – Publicly Available Specification by DIN in German and English.

In this DIN-SPEC we describe a procedure for precise color communication and color sample creation on the basis of open standards such as CIELAB, HLC, ICC and CXF file formats. We work with mathematical color models, high-precision color samples and exact spectral data as a basis for ink formulation at color manufacturers and service providers. Instead of mutually incompatible commercial standards, we show an open, and open-source approach to high-precision color communication.

Besides the DIN SPEC we are working at full speed on new projects and ideas and on different new versions of our free colour CIELAB HLC Colour Atlas.