Scale colours are standardised variants of the process colours cyan, magenta, yellow and black, which were defined according to earlier fixed standards such as the ‘Euroscala’. The term refers to a colour scale that enables a colour-accurate and reproducible representation of these colours.
The best-known standards for process colours are ISO 2846 (colour properties of printing inks) and ISO 12647 (standardised printing processes). The specifications of these four basic process colours ensured that printing results remained reproducible regardless of the machine, location or time. They were therefore mainly used in professional printing, pre-press and colour management.
The term ‘process colours’ is used in particular when it comes to compliance with binding colour specifications or quality control in the printing process. In this context, process colours are often checked using colour measuring devices (e.g. spectrophotometers). There are also numerous older colour profiles that include the term Euroscala in their name: Euroscala Coated, Euroscala Uncoated and many more.
In everyday use in the printing industry, process colours and process colours are often equated.
More articles related to this topic:
Fogra Colour Management Symposium 2026 in Munich from 24 to 26 February
The most important colour management event takes place every two years in Munich: the Fogra Colour Management Symposium. Once again this year, all professionals are invited to make the pilgrimage to Munich: two days of lectures, discussions and a Bavarian evening await participants. Matthias Betz, owner of proof.de, will also be there again: for many years, he has been taking advantage of the opportunity to exchange ideas with colleagues and friends, learn about new technologies, hardware and software, and talk to colleagues from Fogra, freieFarbe, GMG and many more. In … read more
New certified proof papers at proof.de
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 explained
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
PANTONE surveys users online about product and service direction
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
Proof GmbH 2025 once again Fogra and Fogra “Spot Cert” certified
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
New edition of ISOCoatedV2 in M1 in sight?
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
Fogra60 proofs for metal decor printing available
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
Colour deviations in 2023 PANTONE Color Bridge Guides
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
We passed the first proof certification for the 7C proof under FOGRA55
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
Incorrect grayscale display in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign
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