If you read the Project BBCG tutorial, you will have noticed that we specifically have chosen to use Lab values with no decimals. That was a deliberate choice, because these decimals don’t matter in such a color description. And this was recently confirmed on LinkedIn by Daniel Boaglio, an ink specialist with a PhD in physical chemistry.
Here are some of his arguments. For the full list, check out his excellent LinkedIn post!
1: The approximate nature of Lab: the CIELAB space is not a physical constant table. It contains instrumental and perceptual uncertainty. E.g., two spectrophotometers can easily be +/- 0,2 units apart.
2: the absurdity of using decimals: the rounded numbers are only a fraction of a dE00 apart. He uses the following example:
- Measurement: L = 50,12; a = 30,45; b = 12,87
- Rounded to integers: LL = 50; a = 30; b = 13
- The difference: ~0,28 dE00…
3: the illusion of precision, and that’s maybe the most important one, IMO. “Extra decimals create a placebo effect.” If you report, let’s say, 4 decimals, you might think it’s very precise, but this hides the real variability of the process.
And here is his conclusion:
“The obsession with decimals is an elegant way of wasting time. And in an environment where real challenges are controlling process variability, ink density, viscosity, or machine stability, clinging to the third decimal is as absurd as arguing about room temperature with a thermometer that measures thousandths while the window is still wide open.
Color management is not mastered at the decimal level—it’s mastered by understanding perceptual thresholds and process tolerances. And in that game, less is more.”