On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 6:11 AM, Henning Hraban Ramm <texml@fiee.net> wrote:

> Am 2015-04-04 um 22:00 schrieb Pavneet Arora <pavneet_arora@waroc.com>:
>
> > This is great insight into the printing world.  Of course, Pantone has a
> > dominant position on this continent at least, but as you stated, its
> > proprietary nature keeps the palette from being distributed easily.
>
> The same is probably true for RAL.
> Be aware that RAL is no color system, but just an arbitrary and
> historically grown collection. In this regard it’s even worse than X11
> colors.
> There’s also RAL design system, that would be better, but it’s still
> copyrighted and not suitable for CMYK or RGB devices.
>
> See e.g.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAL_colour_standard
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAL-Farbe
>
> Conversions of RAL colors (that are defined in CIE L*a*b) are just
> approximations for one special RGB color space, most probably sRGB, and
> can’t cover everything, since every color space is rather limited.
>
> Conversions of L*a*b or any RGB colors into CMYK depend on several
> parameters (rendering intent, GCR/UCR), because CMYK color spaces are
> generally quite small, and you can hit the same color spot with different
> mixtures of CMYK inks.
>
>
> > So the question remains:  if the X11 colourspace is found inadequate, is
> > there another one that we might look for inspiration to create decent
> > spot colours for document processing?  Even if RAL colours are used for
> > varnish, does that mitigate the use of their RGB values for other
> > paints?  Note, that I am not seeking exact calibration of colours, say
> > for branding across different media; just a more expressive palette for
> > print applications.
> >
> > Unfortunately, I don't have access to the Adobe products that you
> > mention, and in any case would just want a convenient set of colours
> > inside ConTeXt to create documents on the fly.
> >
> > For this type of work, are there any other "open source" palettes that
> > we might look towards?
>
> Spot colors for printing rely on manufacturers that produce those
> inks/paints.
> The existing palettes are defined by (or in cooperation with)
> manufacturers.
> There exists nothing like open source paint recipes, AFAIK, so it would
> make no sense to define an open source (i.e. freely licensed)
> palette/system of spot colors.
>
> Of course it’s possible to define a system of (anyhow) matching colors.
> But that’s so much a matter of taste and application that I wouldn’t start
> with such an enterprise.
> There are some good online tools that help you finding matching design
> colors, at least for (s)RGB, e.g. Adobe Kuler or paletton.com.
> If you need spot colors for printing, you need a (digital or physical)
> palette from the manufacturers.
>
>
> Interesting topic.
I just add for the record
http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/How_to_legally_obtain_spot_colour_palettes_for_use_in_Scribus_1.3.3.x_and_later_versions
http://www.selapa.net/swatchbooker/

-- 
luigi