The CRI (Colour Rendering Index) is a measure of the colour rendering quality of a light source. It indicates how well a light source reproduces the colours of objects in comparison to a reference light source, e.g. a daylight spectrum.
The colour rendering index is measured on a scale from 0 to 100. A value of 100 means that the light source reproduces the colours of objects perfectly. A value of 0 means that the light source does not reproduce the colours of the objects at all.
LED lamps usually have a CRI of 80 to 95, which means that they reproduce the colours of objects well. However, LED lamps with a colour rendering index of 100 have recently been introduced by manufacturers such as YUJILEDS and are particularly suitable for use in areas where the quality of colour rendering is important, e.g. in photo studios or museums.
In the printing industry, D50 standard light is the common standard light in Europe. Whether you need D50 standardised light depends on your requirements. If the colours of objects and prints need to be reproduced very accurately, D50 standard light is the best choice.
However, if the requirements for colour rendering quality are not so high, an LED with a high CRI can simply be used. LED lamps with a high colour rendering index are generally cheaper than D50 lamps and easier to find.
At Proof GmbH, we have standard light booths from Just with D50 standard light, but we often only use an LED with 500 Kelvin and the highest possible CRI of 90+ on the winders. Nevertheless, significant colour differences and metamerism effects often occur here when proofs are only viewed on the cutting table. We therefore always use the standard light booths for a comprehensive colour assessment.
Unfortunately, no retrofit solutions are currently available for simply replacing ‘old’ D50 standard light neon tubes with LED tubes, for example. As neon tubes will be banned from 2024, completely new LED units must currently be purchased and installed from Just, for example, when replacing old D50 standard light neon tubes. However, at several thousand euros, the replacement is currently still quite expensive.
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
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
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
At long last, we are able to fulfil a request made by many of our customers: from now on, you can register two email addresses in the Proof Shop – one for logging in and receiving status or tracking emails, and a separate one solely for receiving digital PDF invoices. Over the past few years, we have already switched many Proof customers to digital invoicing at their request, i.e. we generated a PDF invoice and then sent it manually to a second email address on file with us in 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
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
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
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
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
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