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Designers constantly need to be inspired to create new colour creations. Often pictures are chosen as the starting point for a new colour composition. Or there is a leading colour for which further colours must be found in order to create a harmonious colour palette.
There are several websites on the net that are perfect for such colour breakdowns and colour inspirations for graphic artists and designers. We have summarized the best of them here in an overview.
1. Adobe Color CC, formerly Adobe Kuler:
Adobe Color CC is the Adobe social colour network. Designers can test and evaluate colours and develop different colour schemes and colour combinations. These can then be downloaded directly for use in Adobe products such as Adobe Creative Suite. https://color.adobe.com
2. COLOURlovers.com
On Colourlovers, users can create colour palettes, rate them and exchange information in blogs. In addition, the site offers numerous articles on colour, shapes and much more. https://www.colourlovers.com
3. colorcombos.com
With Colorcombos, users can experiment with different colours and colour
Paletton or the Color Scheme Designer is a powerful and user-friendly colour wheel for selecting colours. Graphic designers can start right away to assemble colour collections and select basic colours. http://paletton.com
5. colr.org
Colr.org is a fun tool that allows you to quickly and easily generate colour palettes from Flickr images or your own uploaded images. Images can also be processed from other websites. http://www.colr.org
6. Pantone
Pantone is the mother of all colour pages. Not only will you find detailed information on all Pantone colours and colour fans, PantoneLIVE and MyPantone also provide community-driven services where designers can create their own palettes and get inspiration from others. http://www.pantone.de
7. HKS
HKS offers more than just the traditional colour system on its website. With the Colourmatch magazine and the design section you will find interesting articles and inspiration on the subject of colour with HKS. http://www.hks-farben.de
8. Colorspire
Colorspire is another simple tool to generate individual colour palettes. Web designers can directly view a rudimentary type of website colour scheme of the chosen colours. http://www.colorspire.com/
9. Colormunki
In colour management circles, the inexpensive measuring device is rather mocked, but the website does offer a powerful potential for designers. Colormunki is a chic and powerful colour application where designers can create colours, save colour palettes and view other designers’ palettes. There’s also a lot of background information from the X-Rite website. http://www.colormunki.com
10. Color Palette FX
Color Palette FX is also a simple and clear application for creating colour palettes based on images. Own images for palette generation can be uploaded without any problems. http://www.palettefx.com [Edit: No longer available.]
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 spot … read more
Even almost 9 years after the introduction of the successor colour spacePSOCoatedV3, 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
Adobe products are ideal for image retouching and layout and handle RGB and CMYKcolour 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
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
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
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
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
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