Why do colour tolerances differ so much between industries?

Print publishes numbers; most industries publish methods

The first table tallies the conventions Colourwise has recorded for this section. Every one of the print conventions carries a published figure, from an ISO standard, Fogra's digital-printing scheme or Idealliance's certification process. None of the textile, plastics, paint or automotive records does: their standards define the formula, the measuring method or the visual procedure and stop there. The difference has a cause. Printing works to shared reference conditions with published aim values, so a limit around those aims can be shared too. A dyer, moulder or paint maker works to each customer's own colour standard, and the limit is part of that customer's specification. The tally describes this dataset, not a census of industry practice.

What decides how tight a limit can be

Three constraints set the floor. The first is how the product is viewed: two body panels meet edge to edge in daylight, while two garments hang apart on a rail, and ASTM's tolerance practice names specimen proximity, gloss and texture among the things that change how a measured difference relates to acceptability. The second is process capability: a limit the process cannot hold produces sorting and argument, not better colour. The third is measurement: a flat, opaque, glossy panel can be read far more repeatably than a pile fabric or a textured moulding, and no tolerance can usefully be tighter than the spread of repeated readings on the material itself. An industry's customary limits are where those three have settled.

Why the formulas differ as well as the figures

Each industry adopted the formula that existed when it standardised, and changed later at its own pace. CMC was developed by the dyers' own measurement committee in the early 1980s, with its lightness-to-chroma ratio built in for acceptability judgements on fabric, and became the textile norm. The textile chemists' current procedure now recommends CIEDE2000 as primary while keeping CMC. Offset printing specified its solids in ΔE*ab from the first edition of its process standard in 1996, changed the magnitudes in 2004, and added CIEDE2000 values for information in 2013; contract proofing moved fully to CIEDE2000 in 2016. Automotive coatings needed something none of these provide, a difference evaluated at several angles, and built weighted multi-angle tolerances.

Figures that look comparable and are not

The second table gathers every record that carries a figure, and reading down it shows why they cannot be ranked. A contract proof is limited on its average and its maximum over a control strip. Fogra's digital-printing bands use an average and a 95 per cent quantile. The grey-balance checks are lightness and chroma errors on a grey scale, not total differences at all. The architectural figure reaches Colourwise through a trade article that names no formula. And the largest number in the table is a limit on colour change after ten years outdoors, a durability requirement that has nothing to do with matching one batch to the next. A figure means something only with its formula, its statistic, its reference and its measuring condition attached.

Reading a tolerance from another industry

When a limit arrives from outside your own field, four questions translate it. Which formula, and with which parameters? A CMC figure and a CIEDE2000 figure differ most in how much lightness they allow. Which statistic: one reading, an average, a maximum or a percentile? Against what reference: a published aim, a physical standard, or the run's own average? And under which instrument geometry and illuminant? If any answer is missing, the number is a clue to what someone once found workable and nothing more. The reliable route to a limit for a new product is the one every industry used originally: collect accepted and rejected samples, measure them properly, and draw the line between the two groups.

The data

What the evidence says

Each statement is labelled by kind — established fact, a standard’s requirement, observed market data, a convention, or Colourwise’s own interpretation or analysis — with the strength of the evidence behind it.

• Colourwise analysisModerate evidence

  Of the eighteen tolerance conventions recorded for this section, all five print conventions carry a published numeric figure, while none of the textile, plastics, paint or automotive-coating conventions does; those standards define a method and leave the limit to the parties.

  Based on: A tally by Colourwise of its own structured records of standards, schemes and specifications; see the first table on this page.

  Caveat: Describes the records Colourwise could verify, not all industry practice. Some standards hold figures in paid text that was not read, and buyers' private specifications are not counted.

  Source: ISO 12647-7:2016 … — Part 7: Proofing processes working directly from digital data; ProcessStandard Digital Handbook 2025: Step by Step toward Printing the Expected; ISO 105-J03:2009 Textiles — Tests for colour fastness — Part J03: Calculation of colour differences; ASTM D2244-25 Standard Practice for Calculation of Color Tolerances and Color Differences from Instrumentally Measured Color Coordinates; DIN 6175:2019-07 Colour tolerances for automotive coatings — Solid and effect coatings

• FactModerate evidence

  ISO 12647-2 specified deviation tolerances for the four process solids in ΔE*ab in its 1996 edition, changed them to a single value for all four in 2004, and added ΔE00 values for information in the 2013 edition; researchers examining the revisions found no published justification for the magnitudes.

  Caveat: A conference paper's account of the editions, not the standard's own text.

  Source: An Investigation of Factors Influencing Color Tolerances

• FactStrong evidence

  Fogra's ProcessStandard Digital defines three tolerance bands, quality types A, B and C, described as stringent for colour-critical work, normal for typical industrial printing, and relaxed; the handbook states that the types are not to be read as better or worse products.

  Source: ProcessStandard Digital Handbook 2025: Step by Step toward Printing the Expected

• StandardStrong evidence

  ASTM D2244-25 notes that appearance factors such as specimen proximity, gloss and texture may affect the correlation between a measured colour difference and commercial acceptability.

  Source: ASTM D2244-25 Standard Practice for Calculation of Color Tolerances and Color Differences from Instrumentally Measured Color Coordinates

• FactStrong evidence

  The CMC(l:c) formula was published in 1984 by the Colour Measurement Committee of the Society of Dyers and Colourists and became the basis of colour-difference practice in textiles.

  Source: Modification to the JPC79 colour-difference formula; ISO 105-J03:2009 Textiles — Tests for colour fastness — Part J03: Calculation of colour differences

• Colourwise interpretationModerate evidence

  No tolerance figure can be transferred between industries without its formula, statistic, reference and measuring condition, and a limit for a new product is best derived from that product's own accepted and rejected samples.

  Based on: Colourwise's reading of the differences between the recorded conventions, and of ASTM D3134 and D2244, which both leave the magnitude to the parties.

Related questions

Which industry has the tightest colour tolerances?

The question has no clean answer, because the limits are written in different formulas and statistics and mostly sit in private specifications. Industries whose parts meet edge to edge in daylight, and whose surfaces can be measured repeatably, work to tighter limits than those whose products are seen apart.

Why do printing standards publish tolerances when textile standards do not?

Printers work to shared reference printing conditions with published aim values, so a tolerance around those aims can be standardised. A dye house matches each customer's own standard, so the limit belongs to that customer's specification.

Can I use the printing industry's ΔE00 figures for a painted or moulded product?

Not as they stand. They are averages and maxima over a printed control strip, measured with graphic-arts geometry under D50, against published aims. They show what a controlled process achieves, which is useful context, but a limit for a painted part has to come from that part's own samples.

Related topics

Go further

Sources

• ISO 12647-7:2016 … — Part 7: Proofing processes working directly from digital data — ISO (TC 130) (Official standard or government)
• ProcessStandard Digital Handbook 2025: Step by Step toward Printing the Expected — Fogra Research Institute for Media Technologies (author: Andreas Kraushaar) (Museum or institution)
• ISO 105-J03:2009 Textiles — Tests for colour fastness — Part J03: Calculation of colour differences — ISO (TC 38/SC 1) (Official standard or government)
• ASTM D2244-25 Standard Practice for Calculation of Color Tolerances and Color Differences from Instrumentally Measured Color Coordinates — ASTM International (Official standard or government)
• DIN 6175:2019-07 Colour tolerances for automotive coatings — Solid and effect coatings — DIN (published by DIN Media) (Official standard or government)
• An Investigation of Factors Influencing Color Tolerances — TAGA Proceedings 2015, pp. 194 ff. (Lufei Yu, Robert Chung, Bruce Leigh Myers) (Primary research)
• Modification to the JPC79 colour-difference formula — Journal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists 100(4):128–132 (Clarke, McDonald, Rigg) (Primary research)
• AATCC EP14-2021e2 Evaluation Procedure for Small Color Differences — American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC) (Official standard or government)
• ISO 3668:2017 Paints and varnishes — Visual comparison of colour of paints — ISO (TC 35/SC 9) (Official standard or government)
• AAMA 2605-22 Voluntary Specification, Performance Requirements and Test Procedures for Superior Performing Organic Coatings on Aluminum Extrusions and Panels (with Coil Coating Appendix) — Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance (FGIA) (Official standard or government)
• ISO 12647-2:2013 Graphic technology — Process control … — Part 2: Offset lithographic processes — ISO (TC 130) (Official standard or government)
• G7 System Certification Application Data Sheet (ChromaChecker 2020.0) — Idealliance (Print Properties Committee) (Professional guidance)
• New G7 Pass/Fail Requirements — Techkon USA (Datacolor) (Manufacturer technical documentation)
• Design considerations for metallic finishes on architectural aluminum — The Construction Specifier (Tammy Schroeder, Linetec) (Reference work)
• FGIA/AAMA 2605 (architectural coatings overview) — PPG Industries (Manufacturer technical documentation)
• ASTM D3134-15(2024) Standard Practice for Establishing Color and Gloss Tolerances — ASTM International (Official standard or government)

Reviewed 6 October 2026. Colourwise summarises its sources in its own words and does not reproduce standards text or proprietary colour data. Spotted an error? Tell us.