Pantone "Plus" Color Guides

[tmiller_iluvprinting]

well, okay, so - suggest a better alternative. What might that actually look like, everyone having a spcrophotometer ? Everyone saying "gee, give me cheesey puff orange !" Would you prefer that designers they give you RGB values ?

Pantone develops a product that is designed for designers so they can see what a Pantone color might actually look like in the real world (vs on some uncalibrated monitor iPhone or iPad)

The books have changed a LOT since 1964 - so has how we print, or better said, what line screen and what color paper we print on.

Get over it Marine. Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.

Educate your customers.

You're missing the point. Press operators are frustrated because the new books are organized chromatically instead of the traditional numerical order. Takes much longer to find the colors, and I have to agree with the press operators, the new system is cumbersome to say the least! Organizing the colors chromatically was a poor decision by Pantone, and fits the category, if it's not broke, break it!

Regards,
Todd

[D Ink Man]

Tint fluorescents! You gotta love those, so useful. WOW!

[Alith7]

You're missing the point. Press operators are frustrated because the new books are organized chromatically instead of the traditional numerical order. Takes much longer to find the colors, and I have to agree with the press operators, the new system is cumbersome to say the least! Organizing the colors chromatically was a poor decision by Pantone, and fits the category, if it's not broke, break it!

Regards,
Todd

You mean like the flop that was GOE?? What was with them trying to reinvent the wheel anyways?

On a funny side, I was talking with an ink vendor who told me a story...
He had gone to visit a customer and was walking through their shop when a pressmen called his name and chucked the new Pantone+ book at him saying "what is this crap?! I can't use this!"

the mental image of that had me giggling for ages!

but yes, I've been frustrated by the new books since they came out, if you DO NOT have decades, or even just a few years experience, I guess I can concede that the books could be helpful, and in a way make more sense, now. However, with my years of practice knowing EXACTLY where to flip to in the book...This is just DAMN annoying!

[rich apollo]

Educate your customers.

You can lead a horse to water, but you gotta' really muscle up to drown it...

[Chief_1975]

A little golden nugget of info I learned a while ago was that the LAB values distributed by Pantone for the Pantone Plus libraries where measured using X-rite's new XRGA standard.

The colours themselves haven't changed i.e. Reflex Blue is still the same Reflex Blue however there are now different LAB values out there which are only valid as a reference point for instruments that have been swapped to XRGA. I can see this causing some confusion if people are not aware!

As for the new books I like the new index system however I am not impressed by the lighter weight paper, Pantone books need to be durable!

[michaelejahn]

The colours themselves haven't changed i.e. Reflex Blue is still the same Reflex Blue

WHILE THE NAME MAY STILL BE Reflex Blue, and REFLEX BLUE - being a somewhat DARK color - may not have changed much - the LAB values have absolutely changed in most of the lighter colors !

- several times - since 1964 - as the paper has changed, and in the Color Guide, where there are CMYK breakdowns - the line screen has changed, the sequence ( I think ) may have changed too.

[RGPW17100]

We got our new books a week ago and I am not impressed. Maybe they should have made a press operator and a designer version. The other thing I dont like is they removed the forumla for the inks and only left the percentages. Working with a scale that deals in lb and oz going to percentages is a real pain. The light weight stock is problematic. Already had on sheet tear out of the book. I also noticed there are a lot more hickeys in the new book. My uncoated pms 280 has two hickeys in it . With the cheap paper we buy it is easy to match that color.

[Lukas Engqvist]

Biggest problem with the thin stock I find is the opacity (personally I'm content with my fan, but then I have mostly used it in education and as I mentioned before I use the bridges since it's mostly for confirming that I have the best CMYK mix for a certain colour) I agree that it could be an idea for differently arranged versions... only that would bump the price even more. (as far as % discussion goes... maybe it's time to go metric ;p )