PANTONE has done it again: Following the changes from 2010 to 2014, PANTONE is now expanding its Solid Coated and Solid Uncoated palette with 112 new colours. For users of the current Solid Plus Series, PANTONE is offering a fan with the new colours in Coated and Uncoated as an extension for 30 Euros. And of course PANTONE also offers updated Solid Coated and Solid Uncoated and Bridget fans … and of course an updated version of all associated libraries.

The reason for the 112 new colours is not entirely clear. PANTONE writes vaguely, “112 industry-desired and inspiring spot colours to complement our existing collection” and “The 112 new spot colours are market-relevant, focusing on specific desired colour ranges that offer designers the most advanced and inspiring colour options for creative design application, expression, communication and specification.”
Let’s be honest: Positively phrased, this does not sound like a convincing colourimetric concept. So it is not surprising that on the American website there is a dazzling image film with designers who really wanted these colours. Due to a lack of relevance this film was probably not even offered in German …
Still, the new colours are here, and designers, graphic artists and printers are called upon to deal with them. The libraries in the PANTONE Color Manager are already updated, and the colours are also available online in PANTONE.
At the moment we do not have the colours available in LAB via FIERY in the system, but due to the published colour values we can proof the colours in sRGB or CMYK variants. We have already completed a first order – so the colours seem to be not completely irrelevant for the industry after all.
In recent weeks, there have been lengthy discussions on the Fogra digital printing mailing list as to whether a research project should be launched to define standardised tonal value gradations for spot colours. What is this all about? In the field of CMYK and seven-colour printing, the definition of clear, printable and proofable standards is well established and has been tried and tested in practice. If the paper or paper class is known and defined, a measuring standard such as M0/M1/M2 has been established and the content of optical brighteners … 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 recent years, various problems have arisen with our previous proof paper supplier. On the one hand, we sometimes had to wait more than three months for paper deliveries; on the other hand, we sometimes had significant problems with batch-to-batch discrepancies, surface defects and much more. After lengthy deliberations, we decided in December to replace all the paper. We therefore received pallets of new paper at the turn of the year, which we are now gradually incorporating into our production. There will be no hard cut, but the new papers … read more
Shortly after Adobe’s announcement to remove PANTONE colours from their products, PANTONE removed the popular PANTONE Find a Color from their website
In this short image video we – the Proof GmbH – introduce us and our work. Find out who we are and what drives us. What do you think of our short film?
From now on you can order proofs for metal decor printing on white sheet metal at proof.de: The ICC profile for Fogra60 is Metal-Printing_MPC1_FOGRA60.icc
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
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
RGB colour spaces are colour systems that represent different hues with the three primary colours red, green and blue. RGB colour spaces are used in digital image processing, photography and computer technology to precisely define colours. The most important RGB colour spaces and their special features are: sRGB sRGB is the most widely used RGB colour space and is used by most monitors, printers and digital cameras. It was developed by HP and Microsoft in the 1990s to create a standard for colour representation on the internet and on various … read more
A few days ago Proof GmbH was the first company to be certified for proofing for the new 7C exchange colour space FOGRA55. 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