Details:
Summary:
For many design and print workflows, the final printing conditions are either unknown or known to be a variety of slightly different printing systems or processes. In order to achieve a consistent and predictable colour reproduction throughout the process even without knowledge of the exact final printing condition, one solution is to utilize a colour exchange space as the intermediate colour reference for the print data preparation phase as well as in proofing. In CMYK printing, there are dedicated exchange colour spaces such as eciCMYK_v2, based on the characterization data FOGRA59, that reflects the typical gamut shape of CMYK printing across different processes. With the Extended Colour Gamut (ECG) also being used for high quality pictorial printing, the need for an ECG replacement colour space was identified, leading to the development of FOGRA55. The aim of this report is to improve the process agnostic FOGRA55 based on the beta version published in 2018 and validate the usability of this characterization dataset as RPC (Reference Printing Condition). Different OGV inks were used to determine the solid aim values of OGV in the dataset in the first experiment, which led to the final FOGRA55 characterization dataset. Two further experiments were conducted to validate the feasibility and usability of FOGRA55. The results of the second experiment confirmed that the FOGRA55 dataset with revised solid aim values is more suitable as RPC for CMYKOGV-like-systems than the previous version (FOGRA55_v1). Furthermore, the result of the third experiment demonstrate the potential improvement for colour communication in terms of better colour predictability and accuracy in some ECG workflows.