In current colour research, the term ‘appearance’ refers to the perceived colour of an object or surface under different lighting conditions and in different environments. Appearance is about how colours are perceived visually by people and how they are influenced by the properties of light, surface texture and other environmental factors.
1. Colour perception under variable conditions
- Light source: The type of light source (e.g. daylight, light bulb, LED) strongly influences the perceived colour of an object. Different light sources have different spectral distributions, which can influence the colour rendering.
- Ambient conditions: The environment in which an object is located, such as the room background or neighbouring colours, can greatly change the appearance of the colour.
2. Metamerism
- Metamerism refers to the phenomenon where two objects can look the same under one light source but look different under another light source. This occurs when the spectral reflectance properties of the objects are similar but not identical.
3. Colour consistency
- Colour constancy describes the ability of the eye to perceive the colour of an object relatively consistently regardless of changes in lighting or the environment. This is an important mechanism that ensures that we can consistently identify objects under different lighting conditions.
4. Surface properties
- The nature of a surface, such as gloss, texture or translucency, also influences the appearance of the colour. Glossy surfaces can reflect light differently than matt surfaces, resulting in different visual impressions.
In colour research, ‘appearance’ therefore describes the complex interaction between light, surfaces and the visual system that determines the appearance of colours. It is a multidisciplinary field of research that includes both physical and psychological aspects of colour perception in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the visual world.
And why does this field of research exist? A very classic example:
Customer question: Is the same colour on a proof different on a glossy, matt and satin glossy proof paper?
My answer:
Two answers:
1) No: For printing according to ISOCoatedV2, the specification states: ‘Glossy or matt coated image printing paper >80gr/sqm …’, so you can already see here that matt and glossy are synonymous. The geometry of colour measurement technology in the printing industry (45/0/2°) also eliminates any gloss effect in terms of measurement technology, so high-gloss and super matt are also identical in terms of measurement technology.
2) Yes: In terms of colour perception by the human eye, identical colours can certainly have different effects due to the different reflections of matt and glossy surfaces. And: If you take the gloss into account metrologically (for example with a ball-head measuring device (d8° instead of 45/0/2°), then the colour would of course be measured differently for matt and glossy. However, this is not how the printing industry currently measures colour.
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
Even almost 9 years after the introduction of the successor colour space PSOCoatedV3, ISOCoatedV2 / FOGRA39 is still the most widespread colour space in Europe. We at Proof GmbH count around 200 jobs from time to time for the German Printing and Media Industries Federation, among others. In the last count, proofs in ISOCoatedV2 accounted for around 68% of all proof jobs at our company. This is a clear sign of the continued widespread use of the colour space. ISOCoatedV2: From the classic colour space to the beacon of the … 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 EAN barcode 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
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
Shortly after Adobe’s announcement to remove PANTONE colours from their products, PANTONE removed the popular PANTONE Find a Color from their website
Peter Jäger is an expert in colour management that reliably works across the boundaries of printers and monitors, web and print – essentially: cross-media.
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
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
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