With most people, colorimetry conjures up the image of bright and shining colors. Producers of black colors naturally have a different perspective. Their occupation inherently makes them think of black colors and coatings. Now and again, gray joins their palette. This might literally sound rather monotonous, but it really isn’t in practice. Gray tones particularly demonstrate significant variations when it comes to the so-called undertones. Deep-black coatings also all have their own undertone, which can be highly relevant to the end user. As a general rule, a difference is made between blue and brown (reddish) undertones, revealing the colorful world hiding underneath the deep-black cover.
In addition to this color spectrum, there’s another exciting and challenging obstacle to master: the measurements are done on surfaces with virtually no reflection. This places great demands on the diligence of the work process and the measurement technology used. This topic has been of interest for a very long time and has inspired, among other things, the development of a method for the measurement of the hue-dependent blackness value and undertone (MC and dM).1 These have developed into the standard of deep-black coating measurements of colors and coatings.