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Color Standards

Ceramic Color Standards

As consumers become increasingly discerning, color and its control has become an important part of the production process in many industries, and accurate measurement is vital to this.  Instruments need to perform reliably and the best way to ensure this is to check them with stable standards.  Lucideon Color Standards are internationally recognized as the leading standards for use in color measurement and calibration.

Ceramic Colour Standards

 

What are Color Standards, and why should you use ours?

Color standards are physical exemplars that offer stable reference points for verifiable and consistent color measurement and calibration. Produced using leading edge ceramic technology, Lucideon's color standards are stable, durable, non-fluorescent, and easy to use.

  • Ideal for use in ISO 9000 Quality Control Procedures, they increase confidence in instrumental color control
  • Providing global acceptance of suppliers' products, they also reduce the cost of producing off-shade products
  • They improve coordination between manufacturers
  • Our Color Standards improve color reproduction between different product sources
  • They provide early warning of instrument problems

 

Range of products - gloss and matt

Basic Range
7 chromatic standards for spectral response, 2 color difference standards, and 3 neutral grey standards for photo linearity.

Neutral Standards
A range of greys from white to black.

Custom Standards
Made to custom specifications.

Mini Color Standards
As per the basic range plus a black and a white, the individual pieces of Color Standard are 10mm x 10mm with the complete set of a comparable size to a credit card (85mm x 55mm x 2mm).

Printing Standards
Robust standards set for the print industry in glossy or matt finishes.  The mount which holds the standards has been designed to enable the instrument optics to remain on the same plane as the standards, thus providing easy and accurate measurements every time.  Each set consists of 7 chromatic standards for spectral response, 2 color difference standards, 3 neutral grey standards for photo linearity, and both a black and a white standard.

Reflectance and Color Data
All of our uncalibrated standards can be provided with nominal data as a guide to the values that may be expected in service.

Applications of Color Standards

Many of the world's leading color instrument manufacturers extensively use and recommend our Color Standards. They can be used in almost any imaginable application where light and color are important; they provide a stable reference in the unstable world of color. 

Traditional areas where you can expect to see Color Standards in use are those involved in textiles, dyes, paints, plastics, ceramics, packaging, and cosmetics.  As consumers become increasingly discerning, color control has become an important part of product development and production control across many industries.

Example applications of Lucideon Color Standards in industry

Dental Materials – Lucideon Color Standards are used in the development of an accurate color control system for assessing the color of dental resins during the manufacture of teeth and fillings.

Road Safety - Color limits are imposed on the suppliers of the thermoplastic coatings used in the manufacture of road marking paint.  One of our customers uses Lucideon Color Standards to ensure that the white and yellow paint produced is within these color limits.

Ceramics - A series of standard colors was needed for the producers of bathroom wares to coordinate the glazes and acrylics used.  Manufacturers worked together to develop a range of popular colors which helped to reduce unnecessary competition and duplication of similar colors.

Food - Color is regarded as a primary process monitoring control tool in this sector as food quality is often based on color - from the measurement of shades of biscuits and bread to the roasting of cereal for brewing, to the manufacture of tomato paste.

Pharmaceutical - Customers from the pharmaceutical sector use color instrumental control to monitor the color change of powders in storage and for diagnostic determination.  For example, where the test strips need to be measured for color change Lucideon has provided ceramic calibration strips.

Accurate measurement is vital for consistency of product, to improve efficiency, and to reduce production costs - Lucideon Color Standards provide a reliable and stable reference.

Products available

Manufactured from ceramic for stability and durability, Color Standards are ideal for use in Quality Control Procedures to BS EN ISO 9000. A Calibration Service for our standards under UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service) accreditation is also provided.

 

Color Standards Series II (CCSII)

Internationally recognised as the leading set of standards for checking the consistency of operation and accuracy of color measuring instruments over extended periods, CCSII consists of 12 glazed ceramic tile standards.

3 Neutral Grey Standards - for checking photometric linearity
7 Chromatic Standards - for checking spectral response
2 Color Difference Standards - providing a direct check on color difference measurement for repeatability purposes.

To ensure that the standards fit precisely to the aperture of an instrument, production is carefully controlled to preserve a smooth, very slightly convex surface.

The CCSII are available in two sizes - 10cm x 10cm and 5cm x 5cm or can be made to customers' specific specifications.

Neutral Standards

We stock a range of greys, starting with White and dropping down to Black. The approximate Reflectance values (0/45) are:
88% (White)
80%, 70%
61% (Pale Grey)
50%, 40%, 34%
25% (Mid Grey)
5% (Deep Grey)
0.5% (Black).

A special opaque Black Glass is also available with Reflectance (0/45 ) of 0%.

The White can be used to check the stability of the standard provided with an instrument, in a Quality Assurance procedure, while the 50% Grey can be used in deriving the correction for sample absorption error in single beam spectrophotometry.

Printing Standards

Robust standards set for the print industry in a choice of finishes: glossy and matt.

The mount which holds the standards has been designed to enable the instrument optics to remain on the same plane as the standards, thus providing easy and accurate measurements every time.

Each set consists of 7 chromatic standards for spectral response, 2 color difference standards, 3 neutral grey standards for photo linearity, and both a black and a white standard.

Mini CCSIV Sets

As per the basic range plus a black and a white, the individual pieces of Color Standard are 10mm x 10mm with the full set of a comparable size to a credit card (85mm x 55mm x 2mm).

Custom Standards

If you have a requirement for standards to fulfil a specific role in your activities, we can produce colors to order.

Examples of applications are:

  • Bathroom colors
  • Tomato paste reference for Europe
  • Calibration standards for textiles
  • Biscuit standard
  • Road marking.

Matt Standards

Our standards are normally supplied with a gloss surface. However, we have a treatment which produces a highly effective and uniform Matt surface. The advantage of this is that both Specular Included and Specular Excluded measurements give the same result, simplifying measurement. The surface remains durable enough to be cleaned if it becomes soiled.

Size and shape

The normal sizes for standards are currently 5cm x 5cm and 10cm x 10cm, however, standards can be made to customers specifications of size and shape.