[CREATE] freieFarbe/freeColour HLC colour system to be accepted as a national standard for "Open Colour Communication" in Germany

[Gregory Pittman]

On 12/01/2017 09:17 AM, Jehan Pagès wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 10:15 AM, Alexandre Prokoudine
> <alexandre.prokoudine at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> 1 дек. 2017 г. 6:36 пользователь Christoph Schäfer  написал:
>>
>> We're currently cooperating with ink manufacturers in Germany and
>> Switzerland to establish ink formulas for HLC colours that cannot be
>> reproduced in CMYK, aka as spot colours
>>
>>
>> Since you already have a prototype, are you talking about metallic inks?
>>
>>
>> This is a real colour system and not just a colour collection like Pantone
>> or RAL.
>>
>>
>> How do you define a real color system?
>>
>> Most importantly, it is a free and open alternative to Pantone & co, which
>> is not only better,
>>
>>
>> Better in what way?
> 
> Though I still think it is a very cool news, I actually join
> Alexandre's questions above.
> You seem to think that your color system is better and "real" because
> it is based off sorted numerical values, with meaning in color science
> (LCH).
> 
> Yet the real power of Pantone is that they were not born out of
> numbers but from actual physical inks (the 18 basic Pantone colors).
> So with the basic colors being "approved" by the company, getting any
> color is a matter of precisely following a recipe. This ensures that
> *theoretically* you should always get the same color at every
> printshop.
> 
> This is based off real life and somehow meets expectations of people.
> I'm not saying that Pantone is great. They have tried for years to
> copyright colors and stuff. They are just trying to squeeze money
> because that's what most companies do. Colors should indeed be managed
> by a non-profit with the goal to improve accuracy and reproducibility.
> Yet saying that such companies don't have a real system is wrong IMO.
> Somehow people who want to print may not care that much about numbers,
> sorting and stuff. They mostly want reproducible colors. And from the
> printshop point of view, getting any spot color from the catalog is
> just about following a mixing recipe accurately, so it's easy and not
> too bothersome.
> 
> So my question is: from your LCH representation, can you ensure the
> creation of an ink so that 2 unrelated people could create the same
> color?

Ultimately, it would seem that this comes down to what sort of traction
this gets with commercial printers. They are the market for Pantone and
other inks. At the same time, there is ongoing development of color
management by printing machinery, not dependent on a particular set of
inks, with standardization being a good thing. It would be good to hear
some reaction to this from ink manufacturers and printers.

Greg