Recognising the requirements of graphic arts producers to work faithfully within the native colour spaces of their client base, renowned RIP and workflow software developer Caldera now offers extended colour matching capability with the integration of HKS and NCS colour libraries into version 9 of its flagship RIP packages.

Complementing the Pantone and RAL colour systems already incorporated in all Caldera solutions, the inclusion of the HKS and NCS libraries in GrandRIP+ and VisualRIP+ ensures accurate colour matching for Caldera users all over the world, and particularly in countries where these colour references are used as standard.

HKS is a colour reference used broadly across Europe, conceived through collaboration between German companies: Hostmann-Steinberg Druckfarben, Kast + Ehinger Druckfarben and H. Schminke and Co. The 3000+ N and K libraries integrated into GrandRIP+ and VisualRIP+ provide 3,250 spot colours for uncoated and gloss art papers respectively.

Based on the euroscale colour space, the HKS system follows the guidelines of ISO 12647:2 2002 and conforms to FOGRA standards.

Natural Colour System – better known as NCS – is the national standard colour reference for Sweden, Norway, Spain and South Africa and one of the most popular libraries for the interior design and textile markets. The library of 1,950 colours has been selected through an intensive research and development process to represent the best distribution of the ten million colours the human eye can perceive and is designed to work with any material.

"Our customers are experts in colour, but have previously been confined by software solutions that have only a limited range of color spaces," explains Joseph Mergui, CEO, Caldera. "Caldera remains committed to driving quality by allowing print producers to work with their customers colour requirements, which means working to incorporate best-of-breed reference systems such as NCS and HKS."