Glossary of terms

Technical terms simply explained

saturation saturation chromaticness in terms of brightness; in CIELAB the chromaticness C* describes the colorfulness of a color shade in terms of the chrominances a* and b*, that is, the distance from the achromatic axis L*, and saturation S* plus the concrete brightness level L* of this color shade.

scatter/random proof épreuve groupée for reasons of material savings, joint digital proof of images from different jobs on one and the same proof sheet.

scattering diffusion diffuse distribution of light rays.

scattering power pouvoir de diffusion property of pigments to reflect incident light diffusely.

SCOT, Standard Color of Textile DIC, Dictionnaire Internationale de la Couleur international color index created for the textile industry, which among other things the state flags of all nations are oriented towards. The dyeing references (2300 cotton textiles, 2568 polyester fabrics, 1100 balls of wool), which are based on the Munsell color ordering system, have distinctive codes instead of fashionable color names.

scotopic vision vision scotopique/nocturne vision adapted to the dark, with the rods on the retina.

screen angle angle de trame preferred direction of periodical halftone dots; four-color combination printing: 30° sequences for the crossline screen (0°/15°/45°/75°), 60° sequences for the chain dot (0°/15°/75°/135°), duplex printing 75° for the light and 135° for the dark color. In hifi color systems, the additional colors take over the screen angle of one of the replaced combination inks.

screen trame frequency-dependent-periodical (amplitudemodulated, AM) or stochastically distributed (frequencymodulated, FM) or AM/FM hybrid (XM, cross-modulated) structure of printed picture elements. 

screen/halftone density densité tramé integrally measured density of halftone printed surfaces.

SDC, Society of Dyers and Colorists British society of dyers and color agent manufacturers, publisher, together with its US counterpart AATCC, of the Color Index. The “SDC Colour Measuring Committee” developed the CIE94 color difference formula CMC with improved correspondence between visual and metrological evaluation.

secondary colors couleurs secondaires color shades that are created by mixing primary colors; additive secondary colors: C=G+B, M=R+B, Y=R+G; physical secondary colors: R=M+Y, G=C+Y, B=C+M.

secondary radiator source secondaire surface that is illuminated by a light source and which reflects light of a certain remission spectrum depending on the light spectrum and the surface coloring. Our largest natural s. r.s are the surfaces of Earth and Moon remitting the sunlight.

security inks encres sécuritaires printing inks with difficult-to-forge properties; methods: fluorescence, UV remission, special reflection and interference effects, machine-readable magnetic coding, integrating of marking substances (taggants); used by registered users in the securities and packaging printing sectors.

selective filter filtre coloré glass, gelatine or interference filter, which selects various wavelengths from the light and thus possess certain filtering characteristics; today used only in metrological applications in monitor colorimeters or in-line color densitometers.

self-luminant body source primaire systems that cause light emission: all light sources as well as technical equipment such as monitors and projectors.

sensationally/perceptually equidistant/uniform perceptuel uniforme more or less well implemented property of color systems which, instead of the mathematical (CIEXYZ, CIExyY) or physical gradation (wavelength spectrum, illuminance) aim for a physiologically justifiable gradation, e.g. CIELAB, CIELUV, CMC and CIE2000, whereby the equidistant property is mainly shown in the intuitive interpretation of brightness, chromaticness and hue angle.

sensitivity sensibilité 1) sensual responsiveness of the eye to brightness stimuli and spectral stimuli. 2) brightnessspecific and spectrally conditioned action range of electronic components (e.g. CMOS) or information recording materials (e.g. printing plates).

sensitometry sensitométrie methods and procedures to describe the coordination of radiation-sensitive layers (printing plate) with the technological requirements; the objective is the standards-compliant tone value transmission in all recording, imaging and printing processes, for which the appropriate sensitivity, tone reproduction and tone value curves are determined and applied.

sensory analysis analyse sensorielle, sensométrie testing of food and semi-luxury goods with the human senses alone by trained personnel with respect to the influencing of quality through migration form printing inks and packaging materials; tested properties: odor, taste, coloring, appearance, shape retention and consistency; methodology: testing of the components individually and after interaction with the printed packaging, in some cases also days later, to take account of the effect of atmospheric oxygen; influence scale: 0 “none”, 1 “just noticeable”, 2 “moderate”, 3 “moderately strong”, 4 “strong”.

separation color couleur de sélection see process colors

separation-preserving préservation des séparations requirement to be met by the link between ICC output profiles that the chromatic/achromatic composition written into the source profile should be preserved in the destination pro file. Problem solution: DeviceLink technology, bypassing the PCS.

setting, film/skin formation formation du film process of the surface drying/hardening of a printing ink layer; this first sub-process of printing ink drying is followed by full drying.

shades, shadow tones dark parts of the image, or high tone values; see also highlights

shadow/black point compensation compensation du point noir configuration option in ICC profile treatment in image processing programs; acts mainly in conjunction with the rendering intent “relatively colorimetric” and adapts the deepest grayscale of the printing process to the deepest grayscale of the input.

short key/black noir court in achromatic composition as well as in modified chromatic composition with UCR, the increased use of the achromatic process color black (K) instead of the three chromatic colors CMY in the three-quarter tones, going as far as the solid tones, in the area of the three-color gray axis, that is, only in a short section of the tone value range. The tone value at which the characteristic curve of the short black begins is called the starting point.

SICOGIF Syndicat national des Industries de la Communication Graphique et de l’Imprimerie Françaises association of the French printing industry; publishes guidelines for color reproduction and proof criteria. Compared to the German media wedge, the SICOGIF wedge has 6 additional color fields and interprets skin tones and gray areas separately.

silver inks encres argent metallic inks on the basis of aluminum pigments; attractive metallic effects when mixed with colored inks.

simulation simulation visual imitation of an expected output result, achieved with the help of ICC color management, e.g. in offset printing, in hardcopy proof or in soft proof; see also “ICC profile types” under simulation profile.

simultaneous contrast contraste simultané color perception that is influenced by the environment of the color shade being viewed. To eliminate simultaneous contrast, a neutral gray environment is prescribed for color matching and visual color evaluations in the printshop; furthermore, an in-field pinhole is recommended when viewing/comparing individual color shades in a brightly colored environment, e.g. on packaging.

skin color, human complexion couleur chair color shades that make particularly high demands on visual correspondence with color measured data and color management results and during quality control in production printing.

slope pente lead factor that can be set in filter densitometers with which the measured density can be multiplied to compensate for deviations between several devices or devices from different manufacturers. To avoid this dubious trick, it is recommended that devices from one and the same manufacturer should be used. Modern spectrodensitometers have such low manufacturing tolerances (Techkon e.g. 0.01 density units or ΔE*ab 0.3) that this function is no longer offered.

slur maculage measure for the tonal value increase caused by unwanted slurring and doubling in offset printing, which also leads to color changes. Slurring and doubling areas in ink control strips are composed of fine parallel lines along and across the cylinder circumference and have a definite integral density, whose percentage increase corresponds to the slur factor.

SNAP, Specifications for Newsprint Advertising Production American industrial standard for printing newspaper advertisements and supplements with scales for higher color densities: CMYK coldset 0.90/0.90/0.85/1.05, CMYK heatset 0.95/0.95/0.09/1.10.

soft proof épreuve-écran, épreuve virtuelle representation of images or printed pages on a monitor for test purposes – unlike hardcopy proof (épreuve papier) – in general, and their contract color-proofed reproduction in particular. A soft proof is contract color-proofed if

– the monitor has a greater color space (wide-gamut monitor) than the printing process color space can offer;

– the monitor was subjected to successful hardware calibration and then the representation capability of the printing process color space was examined by the calibration software (validation);

– under these conditions the color values of the ugra/Fogra media wedge or of a similar control means are reproduced correctly (measurable with the monitor pipette for the correct RGB-CIELAB conversion);

– not only the printing inks but also the coloring of the substrate is simulated.

A soft proof at the printing press central control console (soft copy proof-to-press, e.g. K-Flow SMARtt, wobe-team Proof-Server) is a technical challenge, because there the monitor is in the irradiation area of the standard lighting and its brightness must be reduced (dimmed) to that of the monitor without the color rendering index of the standard lighting changing. The necessary interaction between the monitor, the monitor colorimeter and standard illuminant is implemented via USB interfaces (uniform solution: NEC SpectraView, basICColor Discus, Just Normlicht proofStation). Recommended or standardized parameter values and settings for the soft proof at the central control console:

– LCD TFT monitor with IPS panel technology and hardware calibration with as deep data as possible;

– monitor luminance 160 cd/m²;

– monitor white point 5500 K plus chromatic adaptation CAT02 and gamma 1.8 or L*;

– working color space eciRGBv2 (D50/L*);

– regular recalibration and validation;

– standard light D50, illuminance dimmed from 2000 lx to 500 lx (equivalent to 160 cd/m²) in the comparison between monitor image and printed copy;

– after successful approved press sheet (OK sheet) the monitor is no longer the reference, so that the standard light must be readjusted back to 2000 lx.

software extension, plug in, addition, add-on extension, module logiciel, programme compagnon third-party module which extends the functional scope of software; in the field of color there are for example the color palettes and color fans from, among others, Pantone and HKS for QuarkXPress or Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, as well as the integrability of DeviceLink profilers through basICColor demon. 

solid (ink/full-tone) density densité d’aplat color density of a solid area, i.e. an area fully covered with printing ink, toner or inkjet ink, which is to allow no further influence of the substrate. 

solids content teneur en matières solides rheological parameter for printing inks; volume or mass concentration (%) of insoluble sold particles in dispersions, e.g. pigments in binding agents (conventionally drying inks) or pigments and resins in solvents (drying and mineral oils).

solvent solvant 1) in binding agents, the oily component in which the resin components are dissolved; 2) in heatset, gravure and flexo printing inks the substances which are responsible for drying through their evaporation or vaporization (at ambient temperature, with IR radiation or in hot air).

source profile profil source ICC profiles classification 

special color couleur spéciale unlike a spot color (couleur d’accompagnement) an additional color which, like the process colors CMYK, is reproduced in tone value scales. ICC color offers solutions which not only create multi-channel ICC profiles for CMYK+special color(s) but also reduce multi-channel separations to CMYK (e.g. basICCoolTool spoTTuner) if no printing press with more than four printing units is available or costs for the additional colors are to be saved. Special color printing is the normal case in packaging and label printing.

specimen, sample échantillon measured object that is compared to a reference.

spectral density densité spectrale de la couleur optical density of a special color, exclusively measurable with a spectrodensitometer; the measurement is based on the recording of the spectral luminance factor with polarization filter, so that the density spectrum can be calculated in the range from approx. 400 to 700 nm; the curve maximum corresponds to the actual solid density as an indirect measure for the thickness of the printing ink layer, which a filter densitometer can only indicate very unreliably.

spectral luminance factor facteur de luminance spectral measured quantity which a spectrophotometer records directly; relationship between the luminance of a chromatic surface and the luminance of an ideally white surface illuminated under the same illuminant as a function of the wavelength (in practice: at intervals of 5, 10 or 20 nm); basis for the calculation of all other colorimetric values (CIEXYZ, CIELAB etc.).

spectral luminous efficiency efficacité lumineuse relative spectrale see luminous efficiency function 

spectral sensitivity sensibilité spectrale parameter of the photo receivers (sensors) in colorimetric measuring instruments; see M0/M1/M2/M3

spectroanalytic densities densités d’analyse spectrale density values which allow a subdivision of the process printing inks among the measuring or color separation filters according to their appearance as black colors (SF; these supply the contribution to the “main color densities”) or white colors (WF). Red filter: SF cyan, WF magenta and yellow; green filter: SF M, WF C and Y; blue filter: SF Y, WF C and M. However, since the white colors appear more or less dark, conclusions can be drawn as to the spectral impurity of the printing inks: the darker the white colors appear, the higher is the proportion of irritating “auxiliary color densities”.

spectrodensitometer spectrodensitomètre class of modern colorimetric measuring instruments which can display not only colorimetric values (without polarizing filter) but also color densities (with polarizing filter) and other parameters derived from these on the basis of spectrally measured data.

spectrophotometer spectrophotomètre unlike a colorimeter, a colorimetric measuring instrument that measures spectrally; modifications: inline spectrophotometer (measures colors in moving paths or arcs), spectrodensitometer (can also measure color density/density spectrum), goniospectrophotometer (measures color depending on the angle).

spectrum locus lieu spectral in a chromaticity chart, the outermost limit where the pure spectral colors are located; see also purple line

spectrum spectre see electromagnetic spectrum 

spot color couleur d’accompagnement printing ink which is printed in full tone in addition to the process colors CMYK, e.g. a company color or on packaging; see also special color.

standard (illuminant) lighting éclairage avec illuminants normalisés lighting for color matching desks in prepress and printshop as well as viewing facilities for proofs (e.g. Just colorCommunicator). The devices are equipped with fluorescent lamps or LEDs which have a high color rendering index.

standard illuminants illuminants normalisés illuminants defined by the CIE in the form of tables of the spectral radiation distribution (at 5 nm intervals), among other things for light bulbs A (2856 K) and artificial daylight D50 (5003 K), D65 (6504 K).

standard observer observateur de référence field of view angles standardized by the CIE of 2° (1931) and 10° (1964). The 2° angle, which applies for printing and the media, is called “foveal vision” on account of the influence of the high cone concentration in the macula lutea or in the fovea. The 10° angle (“wide field”), which was developed for the textile and automobile industries, also includes the blind spot. 2° and 10° colorimetric values (CIEXYZ, CIExyY, CIELAB etc.) cannot be mutually converted.

stickiness, tackiness poisseux adhesion properties of the printing ink layer from moist to drying status; influence on tack, susceptibility to picking and stacking properties (tendency to set-off and blocking). Excessively high stacking temperatures increase the tackiness of supposedly hardened UV inks.

Stilling’s test test de Stilling et Hertel procedure for assessing color sense, in which cards consisting of differently colored dot elements are presented; from these, letters or numbers, for example, must be recognized in order to rule out color vision deficiency. Through a modification of these test cards by S. Ishihara, it is also possible to identify the type of color vision deficiency; standard test for all occupations dealing with color.

store light/three-band lamp TL84 éclairage type magasin the most important industrial standard light source (4100 K), which is not standardized by the CIE, but which can be copied by most color-matching booths.

straight-on printing inks encres pour impression recto printing inks that are not suitable for use on sheet-fed offset presses for recto and verso printing.

subpixels sous-pixel in monitors, the division of the picture element into the sub-elements R, G, B.

subtractive color mixture synthèse soustractive see absorptive interference of surface colors 

sudden chromaticity shift saute de couleur effect in additive, physical and especially frequently in autotypical color mixing, for example especially conspicuous in three-color gray despite uniform increase or lowering of the surface coverage of all three mixing components C+M+Y, the gray “shifts” to a

color cast at a certain overall surface coverage level. This is why disproportionately large CMY shares from quarter tones through mid-tones to three-quarter tones are recommended for the gray balance.

surface/object colors couleurs du corps opaque paints, transparent printing inks or transparent foils and filters whose spectral light weakening effects (absorption) are multiplicatively influenced when blended or applied in series (physical color blending). The color stimuli are created through spectral remission on the surfaces of the objects or through spectral transmission on passage through transparent media. 

surface suitability adéquation au support suitability of a printing ink for uncoated or coated, absorbent or nonabsorbent surfaces.

surround[ing] field champ environnant color area and further surroundings located around the color stimulus (infield) to be evaluated. The surrounding field influences color comparisons to an extreme extent and should therefore be kept in a neutral gray.

swatch plage de couleur color sample from a color specimen book.

SWOP, Specifications of Web Offset Publications GRACoL standard (USA) for heatset process color scales; meanwhile internationally available color separation mode.

synesthesia synesthésie see psychology of colors