Matching pantone, mixing process inks

[1roy]

I have problems with a corporate pms273L (50/50 reflex/rubine) job, large solids with varying screened tints, printed on matte board, to be laminated. Vast amounts of ink and fountain needed to reach colour and keep screens open.

I am testing a mix of process cyan and magenta 50/50 and the colour looks pretty good (at least no worse than the PMS) testing on linework on our Ryobi.

Any thoughts of drawbacks about this before I try it on a fuller forme on the SM52? The customer wants a pantone match rather than out of screened cmyk...

Cheers, Roy

[BillJ]

If you contact your ink manufacturer, they will most likely do a color match for you based on the stocks you run. Most Pantones are matched to a certain stock (usually coated). Some charge ($25 or so) for it, others do not. Either way it is worth it for a demanding customer.

[michaelejahn]

I am with Bill. The best way to achieve your aesthetic printing goals and not be unpleasantly surprised is to perform an ink draw-down on the stock you are using.

[George John]

Are you doing the cyan/magenta mix to be more economical? Process Cyan is weaker than Process blue and perhaps will force you to carry even thicker ink film on press and on paper, which might cause slower drying and perhaps can cause laminating issues. I would agree with the previous post and will have the ink company match it both ways with the lamination for you and have a sign-off from your customer on it. This will prevent finger pointing and claims if something goes bad.
George John

[jstanzione]

We absolutely would NOT recommend that someone try to use the CMYK primaries as 'substitutions' for PANTONE base colors. Notwithstanding that the CMYK inks are not formulated to print as spot colors, they are chromatically different and likely will not produce the desired result in the long run.

If you are having issues mixing the ink yourself, it is best, as others have suggested, to request a drawdown proof from the ink manufacturer on the exact stock on which the job will be produced.

Best regards,

John Stanzione
Manager - Technical Support
Pantone, LLC
support@pantone.com

[Lennyr]

No other printer will be able to figure out what you did.
If it's large solids and mixed screens I would run it as a two color job. Split out the screens and run them on their own unit. This gives you the ability to push the solids without plugging the screens.
lenny r

[D Ink Man]

If you can get pleasing color using the blend of process inks that satisfies your customer, at a reasonable ink film thickness that does not interfere with printability; by all means use your process inks as blenders. The pigments of Process Cyan and Process Magenta are identical to those of Pantone Process Blue and Pantone Rubine. There is no chromatic difference as PMS guy, John Stanzione stated. There is also a misconception of process inks always being weaker versus Pantone. Absolutely, not always the case. In general terms process cyan is normally 20% weaker versus pantone, but it depends on the process cyan ink. Ideally Pantone Process Blue (and all pMS bases) should be at a registered constant strength if the ink guy has formulated his blending line properly. But with that said, there are Process Cyan working formulas that are active that are 50% stronger versus pMS. Be careful, hope it helps and good blending. D

[1roy]

It's laminable REFLEX blue (in the 273 mix) which is always a difficult colour to get full strength on large coverage. I can match the swatch with pantone spot colours, my problem is getting up to colour on press with the layouts as designed. I can get as good a deltaE with the cyan/magenta mix as with the pantones ...

[D Ink Man]

You have 2 choices.
1) Ask your ink maker to make you a 30% stronger version of both the cyan and magenta. It doesn't matter what they call it as far as nomenclature.. If they won't do it, you can contact me and I will accomplish that for you.
2) You can seperate the solid coverage from the more critical halftone and/or fine reverses. This would be if you are having in-line problems, a common coverage form problem litho pressman run into everyday.
Hopefully, you have an additional unit on your press to accomodate it. Usualy the result of poor design. That should definitely help you. D

[1roy]

In the end I ran this job in one hit with a coarser screen and slightly over exposed plate (polyester, by the way). Not perfect but saleable, tho still hard work. When I get some time I will try my cyan/magenta mix and let you know how it goes. Thanks for all your thoughts on this.