PDF Testfiles

No colour fans available for the desired system? Print the pdf-overview!

PDF Colour Fans

The contained colour fans were prepared in L*a*b* which is a neutral base for a device-independent representation.

Information about the colour system is displayed on the right side.

"Open" displays the PDF-files.

All the colours of the respective system are contained in clearly presented form.

PDF Colour Atlases

With these files you will get a complete overview over the colour output of your device. With the printouts any colours can be matched extremely precisely.

RGB Colour Atlas

The RGB atlas is used for the colour matching of RGB-output situations. It should be used if either the software or the hardware don't support a CMYK output.

The two print pages at nine pages are suitable for large format plotters, for the tabletop printers single pages are available.

RGB Pastel Atlas

In order accomodate the higher sensibility of the eyes in brighter colour areas, additionally an atlas for the pastel scale is available:

CMYK Colour Atlas

The CMYK atlas offers by its fourth colour indeed numerous further nuances, its assignment is only sensible if the uses software and even the hardware support the CMYK colour model. On the part of the software this is the case for software applications for graphics, DTP or layout.

Every colour field of the CMYK-Atlas is divided into two halves with less and more black. That way a CMYK value can quickly be varied by lightness.

L*a*b* Colour Atlas

The L*a*b*-Atlas offers a complete overview of the CIELAB-colour space. Even though the printout can only contain the colours the output device can print, the use makes sense, due to the perception appropriate definition of the L*a*b*-colour space it offers much better shading than the RGB-colour atlas. A prerequisite for the meaningful use is the L*a*b*-colour input in the program. In general this is the case for professional graphic software.

A page (lightness L*=70) from the L*a*b*-Colour Atlas

In the L*a*b*-Atlas there are complete square page respresentations for the respective lightnesses, a* and b* extend from -120 to +120. The L*a*b*-colour pace is a much better approximation of the human perception than RGB or CMYK, but has its own weaknesses. In some colour areas (e.g. yellow-orange) the shading is too slight.

In the outer boundary areas a printout of the L*a*b-Atlas will not show any colour differences. Reason: the by coordinates spanned Lab-colour space is larger than that of the printers producible colours. For the practice of colour matching with the L*a*b*-Atlas this means: if multiple little boxes are all good matches for the input colour, look the same and lie next to each other, use the box that is closest to the mid point of the page (a* = 0, b* = 0).