The Beverage That Gave Us Color Printing

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The reason we can print in color today traces back to an unexpected source: beer, and a man named Joseph Lovibond. Lovibond, a 19th-century London brewmaster, was obsessed with quality and consistency. For him, a perfect pint of beer wasn’t just about taste—it had to look right too. But judging beer color by eye proved unreliable; human perception was subjective, and lighting conditions varied.

One day, while admiring the stained glass windows of a cathedral, Lovibond had a flash of inspiration. He realized that by layering thin sheets of colored glass, he could precisely match the color of his beer. Building on this idea, he invented the tintometer, a device that used glass slides in standardized shades of cyan, yellow, and magenta to measure color with remarkable accuracy.

Lovibond’s tintometer revolutionized the brewing industry, setting a new standard for color consistency. But his innovation didn’t stop there. The principles behind his device were eventually adopted in color printing, where layering cyan, magenta, and yellow inks became the foundation for reproducing vibrant images.

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