Colorgate to display Spectral Spot Module at Fespa 2019

14 May '19

3 min read

Pic: Colorgate

Colorgate is set to display the new Spectral Spot Module at Fespa 2019, in hall B4, booth K26. Europe’s largest speciality print exhibition for screen and digital wide format print, textile printing and signage solutions will be held from May 14-17, 2019, in Munich. Colorgate is an innovative developer of colour management solutions from Hannover.

Colorgate and FreieFarbe e.V., a non-profit organisation that promotes digital colour communication, worked together to offer open communication and management of spot colours based on mathematical colour models and open standards. Colours that are represented in a mathematical model with a fixed step size do not enjoy copyright protection. This is beneficial, because, for example, it enables the publication of the RGB or CYMK values, as well as the comparison to other systems or the arbitrarily fine calculation of intermediate and opposing colours, according to Colorgate.

CIELAB and spectral data are the most important standards in industrial colour practice, that is, in the measurement and formulation of colour. The device-independent and fully computable LAB colour space introduced in 1976 is standardised according to ISO 17972 and is supported by numerous application programmes and exchange formats used by the graphic industry such as PDF, TIFF, and JPEG. It allows copyright-free definition of any colour. The mathematical models CMYK and RGB, on the other hand, are limited to the underlying output situation, the so-called gamut.

In contrast to RGB and CMYK, the LAB colour space is also equally spaced. For a higher intuitivity of the colour values, the CIELAB polar coordinates HLC (Hue Lightness Chroma) are used instead of the Lab colour values.

DIN SPEC 16699 ‘Open Color Communication’ describes procedures for professional communication of colour from design to production. This includes in particular the production of colour atlases based on the CIELAB HLC colour space, the use of inkjet printing systems and the use of spectral data in the open CxF format.

FreieFarbe e.V. promotes license-free open colour communication in order to enable consistent colour results in all application areas and colouring processes. As a practical tool, FreieFarbe e.V. produces colour atlases based on DIN SPEC 16699 and provides the corresponding CIELAB and spectral data free of charge in order to develop further application areas.

The HLC Colour Atlas libraries are included in the upcoming major release of Colorgate; in the new Spectral Spot Module. The benefits of open colour communication will be brought to fully digital production environments for the first time, whilst effective brand colour management has also arrived in non-standardised printing environments, such as digital packaging printing.

The Spectral Spot Module enables the creation and management of extensive spot colour tables. It supports spot colour descriptions in CxF/X4 format according to ISO 179972-4. This improves the reproduction accuracy in both commercial and industrial printing applications, especially when using digital printing. This innovative solution improves the entire production workflow, from designer through prepress and production to finishing. (GK)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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