An LED is a ‘light-emitting diode’ and in the graphics industry stands for the new ‘LED’ light, which has replaced older light sources such as neon tubes and tungsten lamps. Neon tubes are mainly known from the area of D50 or D65 standard light, while tungsten light sources were mainly used in colour measuring devices such as spectrophotometers and colourimeters. Today, LED light sources are predominantly used for both standard light and colour measurement light, as they can be better spectrally adapted and often emit a more harmonious light spectrum, especially than neon light.
In modern standardised lighting, it is possible not only to set up standardised light for one type of light, such as D50, but also to simulate D50, D65, incandescent light and much more using several spectrally different LED lines by dimming and mixing the spectra differently in one lamp. In addition, the LED luminaires can often be dimmed, which was not possible with neon tubes.
LED light sources are also used in measuring devices, where several LED units are also often used, often including one for UV light in order to be able to offer a defined proportion of UV in the light.
What the industry is still waiting for are cost-effective standardised LED retrofit solutions, but these are unlikely to be long in coming. As the big players such as JUST Normlicht and GTI have dominated the market up to now, only expensive retrofits of the entire lighting unit have been offered instead of removing the old neon tubes and replacing them with new LED tubes in the same housing. At JUST, for example, replacing a small standard lighting unit with four tubes costs several thousand euros, as a completely new unit is used here and the old one has to be disposed of. Today, specialised smaller companies such as Lacuna Solutions can also offer modern and innovative, controllable standard light luminaires for new standard lighting solutions.
Today, however, LED light sources with a colour rendering index of over 98 are also available on the market, so it seems to be only a matter of time before LED retrofit solutions for D50 and D65 standard light will also be available here for the slim replacement of old standard light tubes while retaining the reflectors.
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
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 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
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
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
Anyone who has reinstalled or updated their i1 Profiler app in the last few weeks has been confronted with disturbing news: X-Rite announced directly in the start window that it would no longer support its enormously popular i1Display and i1Pro2 devices. Users of the i1Pro 2 devices and i1iO 2 tables, which are extremely popular in printing and colour management, will be particularly hard hit by the announcement: An investment of €6,000 is quickly consigned to the electronic scrap heap. But what can you do if you own such a … read more
Whether it’s a large global corporation or a small company, the following often applies to designs or redesigns today: we develop everything for digital first.
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
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
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