Light fastness for Pantone Solid Coated

[monq]

Hi all. First of all - my apologies if I am posting in the wrong forum (admins - please feel free to move this if I am in the wrong place!).

I am wondering whether anyone knows of a list of light fastness-es for all the Pantone Solid Coated range? I have found a few resources pointing towards certain colours (i.e. neons, which seem to be either one or two), and a few of the essential colours - but not the whole list.

This is pretty important to me because we have been using neons until fairly recently just to find out that they fade pretty fast, so I need to find an alternative colour scheme for our projects.

If someone is aware of a way to know the exact lightfastness of all the PMS range - it would be great!

Anyway - thanks in advance, and looking forward to learn as much as I can from thee fine people, and eventually, once I learn enough, to be able to help out myself!

Thanks!

[gordo]

If someone is aware of a way to know the exact lightfastness of all the PMS range - it would be great

Your ink vendor should be able to give you that info for the 9 base Pantone inks that are mixed to create the Pantone range. Note that adding white to the mix to create pastels will reduce the lightfastness by 1 to 2 levels.

best, gordo

[monq]

Hi gordo, thanks for your input on this! Because I already know the lightfastness of the base inks, I am assuming that somehow, the final blend would be an average of those lightfastness? (i.e. if I add a 50% of a base colour with light fastness 8, and 50% of another one with light fastness 6, and no white - I should end up with a lightfastness of 7, more or less)?

Regards, and thanks,
David

[chevalier]

There are alternative permanent and imitation bases that can be utilized. The end result isn't an exact Pantone color but a close match can be achieved. Many inks that burnout (chemically react - something to do with amino acids) with aqueous coatings are generally imitation these days. Like Gordo said, contact your ink vendor they should be able to help. They may also be able to come up with an imitation match that will achieve better light fastness although in the case of neon's I doubt this can be achieved.

[monq]

Thanks Chevalier - I was wondering whether there was some sort of general rule to get a basic idea myself; we do not have a vendor but various third party suppliers, and my intention was to give a new colour scheme to the business without having to resurt to alternatives (basically: I want to know whether a Pantone 485 is lightfastness 4 etc)...

Just to clarify - do you fine people know whether it is correct to assume that, other than neons, the rest of the range in the Solid Coated range would never go below let's say 4? If this is the case - we are in the "safe" side of things...

Again thanks guys - I might be trying to find something that does not actually exist, and I need to actually start pestering my suppliers to get a final clarification... Cheers!

[gordo]

Because I already know the lightfastness of the base inks, I am assuming that somehow, the final blend would be an average of those lightfastness? (i.e. if I add a 50% of a base colour with light fastness 8, and 50% of another one with light fastness 6, and no white - I should end up with a lightfastness of 7, more or less)?

I don't think so. What I think will happen is that the color will shift as one pigment fades faster than the other. So, the proportions of pigments that make up the particular Pantone color will determine how quickly the ink fades and what the hue shift will be.

best, gordo

[monq]

Makes sense - thank you very much for your excellent feedback on this! The good thing is that at least I have a set of minimum lightfastness for the main colours - which means that at least I know that our selected colour schemes should not fade below 4-5, unless I use pastels / neons...

Cheers