Sharing Color Names And Specs Amongst Publishers And Printers?

Okay - after all these years of collecting I've discovered a gaping hole of ignorance. I'd appreciate links, references, corrected terms and definitions here, as required.

In another thread or two we were discussing color chip references and that sometimes a "carmine" of one catalog publisher doesn't match that from another - or even the reference color chip publishers. I don't understand why and that is...

...because I always thought a printer was authorized to print the stamp and provided the necessary technical data - including the color(s) of the stamp. I assumed that for more modern stamps colors would be specified in the work order using CYMK references, or perhaps a color name such as "carmine" which meant a very specific CYMK. (How did they do in years ago with single colored stamps before CYMK?)

Then the thoughts were if CYMK is specified, why aren't the catalog publishers calling a "carmine" color the same carmine in each of them? And, why aren't the color chip sample reference publishers printing their carmines the same as the catalog publishers?

(Yes - I'm generalizing, simplifying and assuming in this line of inquiry.)

So all this leads me to ask how, indeed, are the necessary stamp colors communicated with the printer? They must either be in CYMK or a via an understanding that "carmine" means a specific CYMK.

What does the authorizing work orders specify? If there is a commonly agreed to color standard for postal stamp printers to follow, what is that standard called and is it by standardized in each individual country or via an international standard?

And that leads me to the question that if there are standard color names representing specific CYMK values, why aren't the catalog publishers and, very important for us collectors - the color chip reference publishers - why isn't the appearance of a carmine for one the same carmine for another? (Yes - barring paper and coating differences.)

I realize I've a mixed bag of related issues here - but I'd greatly appreciate any links, references, web sites, corrected terms and definitions anyone might be so kind to provide.

Like I stated at the start - I never thought about the behind-the-scenes process of getting stamps printed and how color expectations were communicated.


Waazwi - IMHO
Your humble opinion may differ. Do not make more than two humble opinions a day. If your humble opinion always differs from everyone else's, please see your doctor. Results may vary.

Because most people have no idea what CMYK = 55,100,100,35 means.


To catch on, it has to be consumer-friendly. That is why CMYK is always behind the scenes "technical" stuff. You have to convert it to a "common language" -- that's where the difficulty arises

There already are standardized color names that most industries use; Pantone. So the only challenge is to get all philatelic publishers to start using it, good luck with that.
Don

CMYK (cyan/magenta/yellow/black) would apply to modern multicoloured stamps with half tone dots (screens).

When you refer to carmine, for example, that probably refers to a single colour stamp. That would most likely be printed in what is referred to as a spot colour. The printer mixed the colour in a single ink specially for that printing. Each printer would have his own formula for 'carmine' so depending on who printed it, the colour would vary. That's why the small Queens in Canada or the Washington/Franklin series in the United States have so many colour variations. Both series were printed over so many years, and in the case of the queens, by different printers, that the formulas changed or varied, depending on who was working that 'day'.

Liken it to going to your Home Depot or paint store to buy paint for your house. Behr or BeautiTone (or what ever paint brand you use) may both have a paint call 'Autumn Mist' but they will look different because their formulas are different, and quite honestly, they can call them what ever they want.

My wife and I are constantly disagreeing about red. She points to a shirt or a brick wall and says is that red? and I will say yes, because there are many different variations of red - we call them hues. But she disagrees with me and says I'm colour blind.
Guess I wasted my time spending four years in art college.

Hi

I knew someone who did use Pantone color strips. It helped a little but not enough to warrant the expense of the strips. There is/was a color chart that used actual stamps but, of course, no rare stamps, therefore no color comparison.

I once saw an article on creating your own color chart using stamps that were definitely a known color. The problem is that if the stamp is slightly faded then the color is wrong.

I agree with Don. I do not think catalog publishers will ever agree on color.

Jerry B

The Pantone colour system is great and very useful (I use it all the time at work), but can only relate to newer stamps of a single colour, and only if every printer of stamps in the world used it. There are other colour systems around the globe that are in use, so Pantone is not universal.
Also it only came in to use in the mid 1960s (the company was formed in 1962 out of a parent printing company), so any use of the Pantone system retroactively would be subjective at best, and still not very accurate.

James,
I don't understand the reasoning that since Pantone specification was developed in the 1960s it would be subjectively applied. Is not all color matching subjective by definition if a human eye is involved? Pantone has also tried to minimize the subjective impact by offering devices which automate the color matching process.

I do see a huge challenge in developing a color baseline. So say all the world's philatelic publishers agreed to use a single color system and it's naming nomenclature. Now it's time to define the base color and name for a stamp that is 200 years old. If they gather a large sample of the stamps, how do they determine which stamps represent the 'right' color? If a small majority of the stamps all read within one of several closely related colors, do they then average? What are the margins of error?

And even if everyone agrees with the baseline choice, can it be said that this was the actual color of the stamp as issued 200 years ago? And since it is a given that stamp colors will change over the years, how often do you resample and try to develop the baselines?

In my opinion standardizing on a universal coloring convention would not be feasible until the day that technology can offer a empirical and definitive process that removes the human eye. Perhaps an atomic level chemical analysis of ink? This technology exists but is not widely available to the 'masses' yet.

Kudos to those collectors who have spent a lot of time studying colors of stamps. They are the stewards of philatelic information that will one day become even more important than it is today.
Don

Unfortunately even if a single system could be agreed on, there would be no way to practically communicate it. Modern CMYK values are easy, but as James said, it would only apply to stamps printed in CMYK. I have seen philatelic color charts printed in CMYK over the years, they are pretty useless. Even if an ambitious person would be able to research and come up with a philatelic color matrix, each color would require it's own ink plate. As anyone who has needed to purchase Pantone system books knows, these kind of things get EXPENSIVE! http://www.pantone.com/plus-series-...bxoCLcfw_wcB

As we've discussed in the past, most people don't have color calibrated scanners and monitors. However, I still think a most promising way of identifying color would be scanning good examples of particular color stamps, then publishing their histograms. This gets technical but gives you an idea of what it entails: http://analyticalphilately.org/wp-c...ibulksis.pdf

Hi Don - you bring up good points regarding who determines a representative color. I think color changing over time is a valid point too, although certain colors will be more problematic than others.

The Pantone system is very accurate if used properly, because it is formulaic. If all stamps in the world, starting today, were printed using the system, you'd have your rubric, and all would be right with the stamp world.

But applying Pantone, or any other system, to stamps 'issued 200 years ago' is subjective because we all see colour a little differently, and someone would have to sit under perfect lighting and make that judgment call. Over the last 170 years, at least, you have hundreds of different countries using, conservatively, thousands of different printers utilizing millions of different colour formulas to print, well, I'm not sure what the word would be, kergillions of stamps. So yes, using Pantone retroactively to create a colour guide for all the stamps ever printed is pretty pie in the sky.

But what a colourful pie it would be!

So many colors, so many interpretations. Classic era colors were mixed by eye under a variety of lighting conditions. Catalog editors named the colors based in part on how that color looked to them under whatever lighting prevailed in their work place. Other colors are based on translations from another language. And on and on it goes.

It seems that the best color chart is one that is made from a list of very common, easily identified stamps. Trying to identify Scott #64 v. Scott #65, Scott #64it is pretty close to Scott #248. This has helped me.

The other thing I have done is gotten numerous copies of the same , common, stamp and sorted them by color variation. It has helped to train my eye to see the difference between stamps that have faded, or printings that simply were not careful to use the same color mixture. Scot #300 is great for this. You can pick up a hundred of them for a few dollars and really see a tremendous spread between Blue Green, deep green, gray green or yellow green.

It is good to see this subject aired, but I fear that there is no hope of getting stamp printers or philatelic publishers to adopt a single system for colour naming just so that 0.01% of stamp collectors may possibly benefit. Even if there was such a system, many other factors go towards the printed result.

An example: In WWII, Britain decided that it needed to conserve its valuable resources*, including inks, and so the gravure cells on the KGVI definitive cylinders were made less deep. This meant that there was less ink held in the cells and the stamps therefore appeared paler, as more of the white substrate showed through. The ink used was the same colour-mix for both printings, but the printed result was dramatically different.

The original 3d value is called (by some cataloguers) dark purple, while the same value in its reprint is pale violet. Both stamps utilised inks from the same tub, which printer Harrison & Sons might internally have called E7234 (it was NOT called this) and the ink supplier may have called it "Coates Violet". So, who in the printing or philatelic industries decides if we universally call the ink colour dark purple, pale violet, E7234, Coates Violet, or even Pantone 2685C (the most accurate)?

Glenn Morgan, http://www.stampprinters.info

*It also needed to see the postmarks better, especially on the very dark 3d value, and avoid confusion between different face values, but this is not relevant to this matter.

Glenn

That is totally new information for me as I had
always believed from what I read that the lighter colours
were due to " watered down inks".

That seemed to work for photogravure printings but what
about recess steel engraving?
For this to work wouldn't new dies be necessary with
shallower&finer cuts?

besides fading or chemical changes that change the shade, older stamps also have the complication of the paper changing shades (various degrees of toning) and this affexts our perception of the shade of the stamp ink (and plate wiping also can be a big factor - statmps with a clean wipe look a different shade than those where some ink was left behind in what was supposed to be the white area).

Lithograving, thanks for your follow-up question and sorry for my delay in replying.

With intaglio inks being so thick I doubt that they could be paler if applied from shallower and finer incisions into the plate. This is because the inks used in the intaglio process do not permit the substrate to appear through the ink (i.e. the ink is not translucent), so will not lighten the printed image.

To back this up: I once noted that photogravure inks are 4 times thicker (8 millionths of a metre*) than offset CMYK process inks (2 millionths of a metre) inks, while banknote intaglio inks are 15 times thicker (30 millionths of a metre) than offset inks.

Banknote intaglio print will have 6 to 12 times more pigment in the ink than photogravure inks (which have just 4% to 8% pigment, hence so much of the substrate being seen). Intaglio postage stamps may not be quite the same statistics as banknotes, but you get the general idea.

Terminology:
pigment - A pigment is a material that changes the colour of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption.

translucent - allowing light, but not detailed shapes, to pass through; semi-transparent.

I hope this makes sense, but may need reading a couple of times!

Glenn Morgan, http://www.stampprinters.info

* The symbol for "millionths of a metre" is a squiggly letter 'u' followed by the letter 'm', but SCF does not support this symbol.