CIELab HLC Colour Atlas – freieFarbe

PDF master file with detailed explanations of the colour atlas and colour system as well as 9 PDF layers with perfect visualisation of various colour spaces such as CIELAB, output colour space of the printed HLC colour atlas, ISOCoatedV2, PSOCoatedV3, PSOUncoatedV3, sRGB etc. You can download the PDF file (German) free of charge here.

Digital HLC library for Adobe Photoshop and InDesign in .ase format: You can use the LAB colour library of the HLC Colour Atlas directly in Adobe
Creative Cloud applications. You can download the ASE file free of charge here.

HLC Master spectral data of the printed HLC Colour Atlas in CxF3 format, compatible with current colour formulation systems. Thanks to the Creative Commons licence, HLC spectral data can be integrated free of charge by colour manufacturers and formulators in their systems and referenced in customer communication. Spectral data are a key technology for high-quality digital colour management of special colours. The HLC Master spectral data were generated directly during the production of the HLC Colour Atlas. This ensures that each HLC colour atlas automatically represents a physical sample of the HLC Master spectral data. You can download the CxF3 file free of charge here.

Tabular HLC colour field implementations in sRGB and CMYK ISOCoatedV2 in the versions "Relative colourimetric via Adobe Photoshop". You can download the XLS file free of charge here.

Tabular measurement report of all colours of the current HLC colour atlas version with target LAB, measured LAB and deviation in Delta-E-2000. You can download the XLS file free of charge here.

The colour atlas is available free to download. Why do I need the printed version?

The printed colour atlas contains exactly the same information as the PDF file with the colour layer of the "EPSON Series SC-Px000V, semi-matte without opt. brighteners" plus a final page with a UGRA/Fogra media wedge with individual test report for quality assurance. The printed colour atlas is excellent for colour sampling and colour determination with the highest precision. If you want to sample colours, define colour references and check them against a very precisely printed reference, then the printed colour atlas is ideal for you.

I have selected colours in the Colour Atlas for a design. How can I best use and share the colour values?

In our download area, you can load an Adobe Swatch Exchange file with all colour fields shown in the atlas in CIELAB and integrate it directly into your Adobe program palette, allowing you to work in a medium-independent way. Using this, you can generate adapted CMYK or RGB values directly from Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign during export for printing or the internet in your output colour space. If the colours are outside your printable colour space, or if you want to use the colours as special colours, you can communicate the selected HLC colours or corresponding CIELAB colour tones to your printer as a reference. Many renowned printing ink manufacturers can mix printing inks according to these values. In addition, spectral data of the colour fields are also available in the download area for all colour fields of the colour atlas, which represent the currently most precise definition of a colour field. Printing ink manufacturers can also mix colour formulations from these values that precisely reproduce that colour tone.

What are the spectral data of the colour atlas suitable for?

The spectral data correspond to the printed fields of the colour atlas and can be read in, processed and used directly by software solutions such as InkFormulation. InkFormulation is software for fast, precise, consistent creation, storage, release and reuse of colour formulations for offset, flexo, gravure and screen printing. Based on these spectral data, colour manufacturers can produce precise colour formulations taking into account the substrate colour. This makes these data not only suitable for formulating classical printing processes, but can also be used for lacquers, screen printing, pad printing, textile printing and much more.
Even if your printer is located in a distant country and does not have the freieFarbe HLC Colour Atlas, it can always download the colour atlas PDF, the CIELAB target/actual value table and the spectral data of all colour fields free of charge, and then has – apart from the printed visual reference – all the details you could wish for in terms of colour formulation and colour reproduction. Since the data are provided bilingually in German and English, the data are accepted worldwide.

The price for the printed colour atlas is quite expensive. Why?

freieFarbe e.V. is a non-profit association that operates without profit-making purposes. All those involved in the atlas have made their time available free of charge, even though the development of the atlas took a year. All components of the CIELAB HLC Colour Atlas are available as PDFs etc. free of charge for download and are protected by Creative Commons. They can also be freely copied and distributed in commercial environments, provided that the author and licence are mentioned. (All data are released under the CC-BY-ND-4.0 licence. You can find the full text at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/legalcode.de).
However, there are costs for the printed version that we cannot absorb as an association, including printing and production of the ring-bound book, proof of 27 pages of DIN A4, printer procurement and use, pigment inks, invoicing, accounting, etc. Labour costs also arise for the employees of Proof GmbH in cutting, finishing and shipping the atlas. We have only reflected these costs to the minimum extent possible for the printed version of the HLC Colour Atlas.
For shipping and packaging within Germany we charge EUR 9.- regardless of whether you order one or more HLC Colour Atlases.

There are already hundreds of colour systems? Why another one?

Exactly because of that. Because the vast majority of these numerous colour systems are manufacturer-bound, subject to licensing fees and keep their colour information virtually "secret". Try this: attempt to match the colour of your windows with your façade colour and your interior colour. Try asking at the hardware store for the Adobe RGB values of the façade colour sample book because you want to simulate the colour tone in advance in Photoshop on a photo of the building.
Brand manufacturers and companies with many suppliers of coloured products quickly end up with hundreds of colour swatches that must be kept up to date and cannot communicate with each other.
This shortcoming drives us at freieFarbe e.V. We want to communicate colour across media, openly, precisely and without licence costs.

How can I determine colour harmonies with the HLC Colour Atlas?

In the HLC model, relationships between colours – such as complementary colours or harmonies – can be recognised at a glance. This is a great help in colour design.

Complementary colours are opposite each other in the colour circle, so they have an H value that differs by 180 degrees from each other, with L and C remaining uniform. Example: Yellow (H = 90) and Blue (H = 270). Complementary colours possess the maximum tension of two equally strong opposing poles that cancel each other out.

Brightness variation describes colour tones with the same H and C values, where only the L value changes. This can happen in any number of steps.

The dark-to-light development shows a base colour in consistently strong, calm variation.

In contrast, saturation variation (H and L remain the same, C is varied between two colours) plays with the basic statement of a colour tone from weak to strong.

An H transition at constant angular difference as well as constant brightness and saturation produces a multi-coloured transition between two starting colours. In the opposite direction with the larger angular difference, a larger step width results, or with the same angular difference, more intermediate colours are covered.

Finally, by simultaneously varying two or three of the HLC parameters, many other colour harmonies can be found. Logarithmically rather than linearly graduated variations have more drama. Unequal polygons, inclined planes, spirals, screws etc. in colour space produce many other interesting and lively effects.

In harmony calculations, the perception-appropriate and freely calculable definition of the CIELAB colour space provides a decisive quality advantage over other colour models.

The ordering process for an HLC special colour

To mix an HLC special colour, the colour supplier needs the HLC spectral data. As a rule, a design studio commissions a printer for a print with special colours, and the printer orders the special colour from their printing ink supplier.

When commissioning the printer by the design studio, we recommend the following wording:

"Dear Sir or Madam,

the print job ABC contains the special colour Hxxx_Lyyy_Czzz with the colour coordinates L xx a xx b zz from the HLC colour system (see www.freiefarbe.de/HLC-System). You will find the exact specifications for formulating the colour tone in the attached file fF_HLC_semimatt_spectral_M0_v1.cxf Please forward this file to your colour supplier. "

Information for colour manufacturers

The freieFarbe e.V. association provides an open colour system to the public at www.freiefarbe.de/HLC-System. Available free of charge for download are both colour palettes for the Adobe Creative Cloud and other programmes as well as a spectral colour library in CxF format for use in standard printing ink formulation solutions.
A physical and visual reference of the HLC colour system is the "CIELAB HLC Colour Atlas".

Below are some tips for working with the spectral colour library fF_HLC_semimatt_spectral_M0_v1.cxf in the X-Rite InkFormulation programme:

As the name of the file already suggests, you need an M0 assortment of your base colours for formulation. At the beginning of formulation, load the file in the CxF menu item. You now have all 2040 colours of the HLC system at your disposal.

The filter function of the CxF menu allows you to make a pre-selection of colours. For example, entering H240 shows you all blue tones of the colour type H240, entering H240_L55 shows all blue tones with the brightness L55.
Entering the complete HLC name then shows only the CxF file for formulation directly.
To create the recipe and mix the colour, you can proceed as usual.

freieFarbe e.V. is an association of German and Swiss colour professionals. Since 2016, freieFarbe has been registered as a non-profit association under German law.

freieFarbe wants to provide tips and advice on how to produce consistent colours in all areas of application and is based on open standards that are already integrated in the computer, and wants to show: the computer is an ideal tool for colour, it can make colour free!

freieFarbe e.V. does not pursue commercial purposes, but wants to promote colour communication and

• make colour calculable
• make colour infinitely variable
• make colour systems comparable
• simplify colour communication
• cause no licence costs
• provide tips and advice for cross-media correct colour workflows
• make the many mysteries of colour understandable

In short: Free colour from constraints! There are many good approaches to this. freieFarbe e.V. wants to initiate an open and constructive dialogue about possibilities, and everyone can participate.

Vision for the future

We still live today in a colour world where many colour companies cook their own closely guarded broth. Façade paint does not talk to wall paint, wall paint does not talk to lacquer paint, lacquer paint does not talk to printing ink, printing ink does not talk to textile printing ink, and all together do not talk to the computer as the central tool of colour creators, designers, creatives.
For us as freieFarbe e.V., it is difficult to understand why, precisely on such a central topic as colour and colour representation, hundreds of proprietary systems exist that cannot and do not want to communicate with each other and that are virtually kept away from transparent colour models and open, free standards.

As freieFarbe e.V., we have the very simple vision that in the near future, creatives, designers, colour manufacturers, printers, product manufacturers and many others can speak a common colour language transparently, openly and free of licence costs. We want to ensure that free HLC colours can be freely varied by software that displays them precisely and meaningfully supplemented, and that the corresponding colour tones are available as lacquer, on textiles, as powder coating, film, façade paint and much more and can be ordered simply and directly. That every colour, including every intermediate colour, will be available online, in speciality paint shops, in printing houses, in hardware stores, etc. and can be printed at home and in the office on a printer. And if not, because the colour is outside the gamut of the printing system, for example, transparent and open communication works on all sides about what is possible and feasible.
We are committed to this.

freieFarbe e.V.
Grünteweg 31
26127 Oldenburg
www.freiefarbe.de

Authors

The following people from freieFarbe e.V. worked on this colour atlas:

• Matthias Betz (Proof GmbH) http://www.proof.de
• Holger Everding (DTP Studio Oldenburg) http://dtpstudio.de
• Jan-Peter Homann (Homann Colormanagement) http://www.colormanagement.de
• Peter Jäger (pre2media) http://www.pre2media.ch
• Eric A. Soder (polygrafix / pixsource) http://polygrafix.ch
• as well as Christoph Schäfer and Gregory Pittman (Scribus) https://www.scribus.net

Thanks

We thank the following for their support through software, inks and papers:

• ColorLogic GmbH http://colorlogic.de
• Epson Deutschland GmbH http://epson.de
• GMG GmbH & Co. KG http://gmgcolor.com

A few days ago our DIN SPEC 16699 "Open Colour Communication" was published and is now available for free download from the Beuth Publishing House at DIN.

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 freieFarbe e.V. association, have shown in the bilingual DIN specification a way to create highly precise colour samples based on open source, licence-free standards and have shown ways for cross-media colour communication.

The 44-page PDF is written bilingually in German and English and can be ordered directly from the Beuth Publishing House, which distributes DIN standards in Germany, and downloaded free of charge after a short registration.

DIN SPEC 16699 Open Colour Communication / Open Colour Communication