Federal Standard 595, known as SAE AMS-STD-595 – Colors Used in Government Procurement, formerly FED-STD-595, is a

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Federal Standard for colors, issued by the

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History

FED-STD-595, 595A, and 595B

Federal Standard 595 is the color description and communication system developed in 1956 by the United States government. Its origins reach back to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

when a problem of providing exact color specifications to military equipment subcontractors in different parts of the world became a matter of urgency. Similarly to other color standards of the pre-digital era, such as

RAL colour standard RAL is a color management, colour management system used in Europe that is created and administered by the German (RAL non-profit LLC), which is a subsidiary of the German . In colloquial speech, RAL refers to the RAL Classic system, mainly us ...

or British Standard 4800, Federal Standard 595 is a color collection rather than a

color space A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with color profiling supported by various physical devices, it supports reproducible representations of colorwhether such representation entails an analog or a digital represe ...

. The standard is built upon a set of color shades where a unique reference number is assigned to each color. This collection is then printed on sample color chips and provided to interested parties. In contrast, modern color systems such as the

Natural Color System The Natural Colour System (NCS) is a proprietary perceptual color model. It is based on the color opponency hypothesis of color vision, first proposed by German physiologist Ewald Hering. The current version of the NCS was developed by the ...

(NCS) are built upon a

paradigm, providing for much more flexibility and wider range of applications. Each color in the Federal Standard 595 range is identified by a five-digit code. The colors in the standard have no official names, just numbers. The initial standard FED-STD-595 issued in March 1956 contained 358 colors. Revision A issued in January 1968 counted 437 colors. Revision B Change 1 from January 1994 counted 611 colors.

FED-STD-595C

Federal Standard 595C was published January 16, 2008. No previous colors were removed. Thirty-nine new colors were added for a total of 650 colors. On July 31, 2008 595C Change Order 1 was published, changing the numbers of eight of the colors added in revision C. The revision C master reference list of colors provides all available reference information for these colors, including tristimulus values, pigments and 60° gloss level and color name as applicable. As before, all color matching must still be done via color reference chips. Many prime contractors, such as L3, require the Federal Standard 595 paint chips used for inspection purposes be replaced every two years.

AMS-STD-595

As of February 14, 2017, FED-STD-595 was cancelled and replaced by

SAE International SAE International is a global professional association and standards organization based in Warrendale, Pennsylvania, United States. Formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers, the organization adopted its current name in 2006 to reflect bot ...

's AMS-STD-595. Color chips as well as fan decks are available, including a box set containing 692 color chips.

References

External links

Federal Standard 595C Color chart

Federal Standard 595C
2008. PDF files available from the website of the US military. {{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170228172932/http://quicksearch.dla.mil/qsDocDetails.aspx?ident_number=281483 , date=2017-02-28
Federal Standard 595B Rev Dec 1989
the previous version, FED-STD-595B, from 1989, revised in 1994
Federal Standard 595 Color Server
a third-party search engine providing graphical samples for each color and able to display combinations of colors *

*

Color space Standards of the United States