freeColor e. V. is a consortium of German and Swiss color experts who work to produce consistent color in all areas of application. Sounds reasonable? Exactly. That is the issue that is of central importance to our proofing customers. Therefore we are currently working in a project with the colleagues of FreieFarbe e. V. and are now also as Proof GmbH member and partner of FreieFarbe e. V.
FreeColor relies on open standards such as LAB and HLC, which have long been integrated in computer software and want to show: the computer is an ideal tool for color, it can make color free! The association FreieFarbe e. V. aims to promote colour communication without pursuing commercial goals.
freeColor e. V. would like to promote developments that…
- Make coulor calculable
- Make colour applicably
- Make ink systems comparable
- Simplify color communication
- Have no license costs
- Give Tips and hints for a correct cross-media colour workflow
- make the multiple mysteries of color understandable
In recent months, Holger Everding, Peter Jäger, Eric A. Soder and Jan-Peter Homann have developed a completely new approach to this, which we were able to develop together with our colleagues into a product that we will present shortly.
We would like to take this opportunity to point out a great feature of the website of FreieFarbe. de: The colour database: Here you can look up the most important colour values for more than 300 colour systems and calculate colour comparisons of all kinds.
For the work within the association FreieFarbe e. V. the association is always looking for competent companions. If you, like us, are touched by the subject of colour in a variety of ways, there are many opportunities at fF to contribute with your knowledge and strengths. If you feel like our good cause, please contact us!
More articles related to this topic:
Gamut map: The colour tool for cross-media design
Due to our involvement with freeColour e.V., at the last meeting in Switzerland the desire for a cross-media tool for designers was expressed with which one can create intersections of colourspaces from the freieFarbe CIELAB HLC Colour Atlas XL. With Gamutmap, Proof GmbH has now created such a tool, which is available to all designers free of charge. With Gamutmap nearly 100 individual colour spaces can be indicated from 34.250 colours of the entire CIELAB colour space, or intersections from many combined colour spaces can be indicated. An example: As … read more
DIN SPEC 16699 “Open colour communication” published
A few days ago, our DIN SPEC 16699 “Open Colour Communication” was published and is now available for free download from DIN’s Beuth-Verlag. Matthias Betz from Proof GmbH, Holger Everding from DTP Studio Oldenburg, Jan-Peter Homann from Homann Colormanagement in Berlin and Eric. A Soder from Pixsource in Switzerland, all members of the association freieFarbe e.V., have shown in the bilingual DIN specification a way to create high-precision color samples on the basis of open source, license-free standards and have shown ways for cross-media color communication. The 44-page PDF is … read more
DIN SPEC 16699 “Open colour communication” shortly before publication
Last Monday, the authors Jan-Peter Homann, Holger Everding, Eric A. Soder and Matthias Betz took another milestone in the direction of free color communication in a final meeting at the German Institute for Standardization – DIN in Berlin: The last open points of DIN SPEC 16699 “Open Colour Communication” were discussed and approved. Now only the English version by Matthias Betz and Eric A. Soder and the final implementation and approval by DIN are missing. It is expected that DIN SPEC will be available for download in August. … read more
DIN SPEC Business Plan “Open Colour Communication” published
Currently, our freecolour.org DIN SPEC business plan was published for 4 weeks from 19.02.2018 to 19.03.2018 on the DIN website for comment. In this DIN SPEC we will define tools and procedures for open and transparent color communication from design to finished product based on CIELAB color values, physical samples according to ISO12647-7 and spectral data in CxF3 format according to ISO 17972. DIN SPEC describes both the way to create physical samples and CxF spectral data for any CIELAB color values by the user and the basic parameters of … read more
CIELAB HLC Colour Atlas available in the Proof.de Shop
It has taken almost a year, but we are all the more pleased now: The “CIELAB HLC Colour Atlas” is completed and can be ordered in our shop. The HLC Colour Atlas is a open source, high-precision colour system based on open standards.
Reproduction of anaglyph images and line drawings
Already a few weeks ago we received an unusual request: The musician and aspiring art student Tobias Weh from Osnabrück experimented with line drawings based on anaglyphs and achieved very good results on the monitor. He created superimposed line drawings, which then delivered a different image when viewed through the left eye than when viewed through the right eye. The question was whether this could be reproduced better with the high color range of a proofing system than with a simple domestic inkjet printer. Since such questions are of course … read more
Layout in RGB, print in CMYK. Problems?
Especially in larger companies today the layout in RGB is the rule rather than the exception. The advantages are obvious: In practice, however, there are two potential problems in particular. Problem 1: CMYK conversion in the last step.The catalogue is designed in InDesign, all data is perfectly matched, the last step before printing and proofing is the export to a printable PDF in CMYK. Usually this is done via a preset in InDesign, which defines the exact specifications for the color space conversion. In practice, however, this color space transfer … read more