In the printing industry, the term colour spectrum usually refers to an achievable colour space.
The ‘colour spectrum’ describes the totality of colours that a printing process or a specific printer can reproduce. The colour spectrum is determined by the printing inks, inks and printing techniques used. ‘The new CANON printer has a super colour spectrum’ would be a classic colloquial formulation.
The larger the colour space of a printing process, the more different colours can be reproduced accurately. Printing technologies such as offset printing, flexographic printing and digital printing have different colour spectrums that depend on the printing ink, substrate and other technical factors such as process colours or spot colours.
Colour gamut control is an important aspect of the printing industry, especially when it comes to reproducing accurate and consistent colours in printed materials. Colour management systems are used to ensure that the colours on the printed product match the intended colour values, digital proofs are used to check on the machine and in advance of the design process to ensure colour accuracy in the final print.
However, a colour spectrum can also be a single spectrum of a single colour.
If a colour is measured with a spectral measuring device, a file is created in which, for example, an emission colour spectrum is written to a file when measuring monitors or a reflectance colour spectrum is written to a file when measuring prints. Typical files such as CXF (Colour Exchange Format) or CGATS contain a colour spectrum or several colour spectra that are spectrally represented in the file. A value is stored for each wavelength measuring point of the measuring device, from which a colour value can then be calculated.
An example of such a CGATS file can be found in our paper white tables for printing papers, where we have measured the colour spectrum of the paper and published it as a file. Such a CGATS file looks like this:
CGATS.17
ORIGINATOR "Proof GmbH, https://www.proof.de | BabelColor CT&A, version 4.0.0 b298"
LGOROWLENGTH 1
CREATED "2019-02-28" # Time: 16:51:26
INSTRUMENTATION "i1Pro 2 (XRGA)"
# Instrument Serial Number: "1095898"
#
# Sample-1 (S1) name: "Arktika-GC1-M2"
#
MEASUREMENT_SOURCE ""S1: Reflectance (M2) Illuminant:D50 Observer:2_deg Units=Reflectance(0-1) WhiteBase=Automatic Filter=no""
#
KEYWORD "SAMPLE_ID"
KEYWORD "SAMPLE_NAME"
NUMBER_OF_FIELDS 44
BEGIN_DATA_FORMAT
SAMPLE_ID SAMPLE_NAME L*a*b*_L L*a*b*_a L*a*b*_b L*C*h*(ab)_L L*C*h*(ab)_C L*C*h*(ab)_h nm380 nm390 nm400 nm410 nm420 nm430 nm440 nm450 nm460 nm470 nm480 nm490 nm500 nm510 nm520 nm530 nm540 nm550 nm560 nm570 nm580 nm590 nm600 nm610 nm620 nm630 nm640 nm650 nm660 nm670 nm680 nm690 nm700 nm710 nm720 nm730
END_DATA_FORMAT
NUMBER_OF_SETS 1
BEGIN_DATA
1 Arktika-GC1-M2 95,45 0,6834 3,022 95,45 3,098 77,26 0,4987 0,5423 0,5984 0,7088 0,7831 0,8209 0,8362 0,8462 0,8558 0,8625 0,8682 0,8732 0,8764 0,8783 0,8805 0,8803 0,8811 0,8822 0,8806 0,8840 0,8856 0,8896 0,8943 0,8997 0,9078 0,9182 0,9316 0,9424 0,9501 0,9546 0,9563 0,9571 0,9612 0,9646 0,9671 0,9711
END_DATA
In the ‘Sample_ID’ line, the measured spectra are listed in columns from 380-730 nanometres after the LAB and LCH values; the respective measured values from which the LAB and LCH colour values were calculated are then listed in the line under ‘BEGIN_DATA’.
The term colour spectrum would therefore refer here to the actual individual colour spectrum of a measured colour, and not to the colour space of a printer or printing process.
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
Today I received an email in which PANTONE asked how it should orientate its products and services in the future. The users were asked which countries, industries and company sizes they come from, but also what PANTONE products should look like in the future and what customers would be prepared to pay for PANTONE services in the future. Question: How much can PANTONE services cost? PANTONE appears to be orientating itself on the PANTONE Connect prices: All price queries have the lowest price category < $ 7,- / month, i.e. … read more
Offset and Newsprint ISO Coated v2 (ECI) / ISO Coated v2 300% (ECI) Profile: ISOcoated_v2_eci.icc Standard for glossy and matte coated paper Paper: Types 1 and 2, gloss and matte coated Tone value increase curves A (CMY) and B (K) as defined in ISO 12647-2:2004 Characterisation Data: FOGRA39L ISOUncoated Profile: ISOUncoated.icc Standard for uncoated white natural paper Paper: paper grade 4, uncoated white offset, dot gain curves C (CMY) and D (K) from ISO 12647-2: 2004 Characterisation Data: FOGRA29L PSOCoatedV3 / Fogra 51 Profile: PSOcoated_v3.icc The successor of ISOCoatedV2 for glossy … read more
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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
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
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?
Peter Jäger is an expert in colour management that reliably works across the boundaries of printers and monitors, web and print – essentially: cross-media.
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