ISO 3664:2009 is an ISO standard that specifies lighting conditions for the visual assessment of colours and printed matter in prepress and other areas. To ensure that colour perception takes place under standardised conditions, the standard defines many aspects of lighting and describes the following aspects:
- Lighting conditions: The standard defines specific requirements for lighting. These include colour temperature, spectral distribution and stability to ensure consistent and accurate colour perception.
- Colour temperature: The standard recommends a colour temperature of 5000 Kelvin (D50 standard light), which corresponds approximately to a neutral daylight simulation. In Europe, D50 standard light is widely used in print shops and for colour assessment.
- Spectral distribution: To ensure that the lighting provides good colour rendering across the entire visible spectrum, the spectral distribution of the light is defined.
- Stability and uniformity: The standard specifies requirements for the stability and uniformity of lighting to ensure that colours are reliably perceived and colour differences can be correctly assessed.
- Colour rendering index (CRI): The standard recommends a high colour rendering index (CRI) for the standard illuminant to ensure correct colour perception.
- Viewing environment: Recommendations for the design of the viewing environment, including the background colour and minimising distracting reflections, are also included in ISO 3664:2009.
Overall, ISO 3664:2009 defines the standards for lighting in prepress to enable accurate and consistent visual assessment of colours and print materials. Companies such as Just or GTI Normlicht and Lacunasolutions offer standardised lighting solutions for print shops and prepress companies for print proofing, but also for soft proofing.
Adobe products are ideal for image retouching and layout and handle RGB and CMYK colour profiles very well. However, when editing and retouching grayscale images, for example for a black-and-white photo book, the experience is quite different. Suddenly, images look completely different in InDesign than they do in Photoshop, and even when exporting the image to PDF, greyscale images are suddenly treated differently. This article explains where the problems lie with black-and-white images and greyscale profiles in InDesign and Photoshop layouts, and how you can work in a more ‘colour-accurate’ … read more
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
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
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
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
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 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
Peter Jäger is an expert in colour management that reliably works across the boundaries of printers and monitors, web and print – essentially: cross-media.
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