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Designers constantly need to be inspired to create new colour creations. Often pictures are chosen as the starting point for a new colour composition. Or there is a leading colour for which further colours must be found in order to create a harmonious colour palette.
There are several websites on the net that are perfect for such colour breakdowns and colour inspirations for graphic artists and designers. We have summarized the best of them here in an overview.
1. Adobe Color CC, formerly Adobe Kuler:
Adobe Color CC is the Adobe social colour network. Designers can test and evaluate colours and develop different colour schemes and colour combinations. These can then be downloaded directly for use in Adobe products such as Adobe Creative Suite. https://color.adobe.com
2. COLOURlovers.com
On Colourlovers, users can create colour palettes, rate them and exchange information in blogs. In addition, the site offers numerous articles on colour, shapes and much more. https://www.colourlovers.com
3. colorcombos.com
With Colorcombos, users can experiment with different colours and colour
Paletton or the Color Scheme Designer is a powerful and user-friendly colour wheel for selecting colours. Graphic designers can start right away to assemble colour collections and select basic colours. http://paletton.com
5. colr.org
Colr.org is a fun tool that allows you to quickly and easily generate colour palettes from Flickr images or your own uploaded images. Images can also be processed from other websites. http://www.colr.org
6. Pantone
Pantone is the mother of all colour pages. Not only will you find detailed information on all Pantone colours and colour fans, PantoneLIVE and MyPantone also provide community-driven services where designers can create their own palettes and get inspiration from others. http://www.pantone.de
7. HKS
HKS offers more than just the traditional colour system on its website. With the Colourmatch magazine and the design section you will find interesting articles and inspiration on the subject of colour with HKS. http://www.hks-farben.de
8. Colorspire
Colorspire is another simple tool to generate individual colour palettes. Web designers can directly view a rudimentary type of website colour scheme of the chosen colours. http://www.colorspire.com/
9. Colormunki
In colour management circles, the inexpensive measuring device is rather mocked, but the website does offer a powerful potential for designers. Colormunki is a chic and powerful colour application where designers can create colours, save colour palettes and view other designers’ palettes. There’s also a lot of background information from the X-Rite website. http://www.colormunki.com
10. Color Palette FX
Color Palette FX is also a simple and clear application for creating colour palettes based on images. Own images for palette generation can be uploaded without any problems. http://www.palettefx.com [Edit: No longer available.]
A few days ago Proof GmbH was the first company to be certified for proofing for the new 7C exchange colour spaceFOGRA55. Fogra has developed characterisation data for extended multicolour printing with the printing colours CMYKOGV – i.e. cyan, magenta, yellow, black (contrast), orange, green and violet – FOGRA55 as part of a research project over the past few years. The characterisation data and the ICC profile Ref-ECG-CMYKOGV_FOGRA55_TAC300.icc have been published on the Fogra website in recent weeks. We have now carried out the certification via GMG ColorProof, as … read more
A new generation of colour measuring devices is entering the market: in contrast to the classic measuring devices, which are available as a fully encapsulated system either as a colourimeter or as a spectrophotometer, and then supply the data to a computer via an interface or app or display it directly, the new generation of colour measuring devices consist only of lighting and software, with the optics of a modern iPhone from Apple being used as the sensor. Until now, there have been two categories of measuring devices on the … read more
In the current issue of Fogra News “Fogra Aktuell” Proof GmbH is involved in two places. Firstly, a summary of the Fogra report on our first FOGRA55 certification for seven-colour printing with extended colour space in CMYKOGV appeared. You can also find more information on our FOGRA55 certification on the Fogra website: https://fogra.org/en/press-releases/fogracert-erste-cpc-zertifizierung-fuer-fogra55-cmykogv-330 and on proofing.de: And secondly, there was a report on the completion of the research project for textile digital printing, FOGRA58, in which we were allowed to investigate and test the proof capability of the new textile … read more
Digimarc is a digital watermark that can be used to embed information in images, videos or other media. Digimarc watermarks are invisible to the human eye, but remain recognisable to special software or devices. Digimarc is becoming increasingly popular in the packaging sector in particular, as this technology allows the digits of the EANbarcode and more to be applied invisibly to all areas of the packaging. Digimarc and EAN barcode at the supermarket checkout When scanning at the checkout, the checkout staff do not have to search for the … read more
Over the last few months, we at Proof.de have been thinking about further improving our already very good colour measurement technology in terms of speed and measurement precision. Relatively quickly it became clear that only two devices would come into question: The KonicaMinolta MYIRO-9, the successor of the former FD-9, or the X-Rite ISIS 2 XL. The starting point: Since we at Proof GmbH have 5 proofing devices, the calibration of targets for profile optimisation is a time-critical undertaking for us. Therefore, we had been looking around for an upgrade of … read more
The most important colour management event takes place every two years in Munich: the Fogra Colour Management Symposium. Once again this year, all professionals are invited to make the pilgrimage to Munich: two days of lectures, discussions and a Bavarian evening await participants. Matthias Betz, owner of proof.de, will also be there again: for many years, he has been taking advantage of the opportunity to exchange ideas with colleagues and friends, learn about new technologies, hardware and software, and talk to colleagues from Fogra, freieFarbe, GMG and many more. In … read more
From now on, it’s much easier and faster: in the Proof Shop, you can call up and reorder entire orders or individual proofs directly from your order history. This saves you from having to re-enter every detail and gives you the assurance that all settings will be exactly the same as last time. With just a few clicks, your proofs are reordered – reliably, easily and in no time at all. What exactly is new? You can find your order history in your customer account. There are two new options … read more
Several errors have crept into the new PANTONE 2023 fan decks. In both the PANTONE Solid Coated and the Solid Uncoated color fans, there are colours for which the new ink formulations are incorrect. In the PANTONE Formula Guide Solid Coated fan 2023, PANTONE 107 C and PANTONE 108 C have absolutely identical ink recipes, as well as PANTONE 113 C and PANTONE 114 C. As the colors differ, this cannot be the correct. Several errors in the PANTONE Solid Uncoated fan 2023 In the PANTONE Solid Uncoated fan 2023 … read more
After Eddy Hagen pointed out in this posts, that there were some major colour deviations between the brand new PANTONE Solid Coated Guide 2023 and the previous version especially for the PANTONE 2635 C, I was curious to lookup the same colours in the new PANTONE Color Bridge Coated Guide of 2023 and compare the colours with the previous version. I measured a dE00 of 8,15 between the two colours that Eddy mentioned, which is really far apart from how accurate PANTONE colours should match between the different PANTONE guides. … read more
This year we once again created proofs for Fogra certification and sent them to Munich-Aschheim for testing. With these proof prints, which we print according to three different proof standards and on three different papers, we point out that we not only deliver excellent proof quality through internal quality controls and checks, but that the quality of our proofs is also measured and confirmed by external experts. We have now had test prints certified by Fogra for the 12th time. We have also been “Spot-cert” certified for the display of … read more