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 a designer you are looking for colours for a new corporate design, which are available in sRGB for the internet, in ISOCoatedV2 for printing image brochures and in PSOUncoatedV3 for printing stationery. For video productions, the Rec.709 colour space is also to be taken into account.

In Gamutmap you can now easily select the colour spaces sRGB, ISOCoatedV2, PSOUncoatedV3 and Rec.709 and then click on “show”. After a few seconds you will only see the colours that are available in all selected colour spaces. If you move the mouse over a colour field, you will directly see the absolute colorimetric values of the colour in all selected colour spaces and you can copy them directly to your clipboard.

Since the hex value of the sRGB colour space was also still interesting, this colour space was additionally marked for display. The HLC and Lab values of all colours can be read directly in the colour table. All other colour values can be copied to the clipboard simply by moving the mouse to the desired colour field. For the colour field shown in the example above, it looks like this:

HLC: H005 | L055 | C035
Lab: 55 | 34,867 | 3,05
sRGB: 188 | 106 | 128
sRGB (HEX): #BC6A80
Rec. ITU-R BT.709-5: 188 | 87 | 115
ISO Coated V2 (ECI): 14 | 64 | 27 | 11
PSO Uncoated V3 (Fogra52): 10 | 70 | 34 | 8

Gamutmap is “Work in Progress”

We are sure that gamutmap will be a great help to many designers in creating cross-media corporate designs and are very happy that we were able to start and push the project with the members of freieFarbe e.V. For us, gamutmap is “work in progress”, which means: In the coming weeks we will add further functionalities and features to gamutmap. For example, a German version is in progress, and the download of spectral D50 CxF data of the selected colours should be possible in the future directly while hovering over the respective colour field, if the field is in the gamut of the freefarbe CIELAB HLC Colour Atlas XL. Further function extensions are already on our wish list… 🙂

We welcome suggestions, criticism, wishes and any support for the expansion and addition of Gamutmap.

Proof GmbH is a partner of FreieFarbe e. V.

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!

www.freecolour.org

Reproduction of anaglyph images and line drawings

Anaglyph glasses - transmitted spectrum of the two foils

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 very interesting at first sight, we were quickly prepared to support Mr Weh in his work. To get closer to the matter, we use an i1 Pro 2 and BabelColor Color Translator & Analyzer to measure the spectra for the two films, which are transmitted through standard anaglyph glasses.

Anaglyphenbrille - Durchgelassenes Spektrum der beiden FolienActually a very satisfactory result. By choosing two colours as printing in the spectral ranges of 450 to 500 nanometres for blue and 650 to 700 nanometres for red, it should actually be possible to achieve quite a good result.

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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:

  • The layout takes place in a large, almost media-neutral color space
  • All Photoshop filters are available without restrictions
  • The process of color space conversion to CMYK is shifted to the production process as late as possible

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 can hardly be monitored. The problem: Even if you check the color values in Acrobat in the exported PDF file, for example, Acrobat does not really display the colors it contains. Acrobat brav would show you CMYK values even if the RGB images are still wrongly contained. However, other CMYK values can occur during printing when the data is processed again. Lately it looked like this:

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