Pantone to cmyk need advise

[rpl1991]

Hi all, here is my situation, our company has been printing a book with about 44 different Pantone colors plus cmyk the Pantone color are mainly pastel colors, the book was done using negatives. I am in the process of doing over the book to ctp and I need to convert the Pantone to cmyk,
I am not satisfied with the conversion being done from Acrobat, I want to be able to choose a color from a Pantone book that is as close as the pastel color of the Pantone, I have a few Pantone books but they don't have the cmyk values on them, is there a chart that will show these pAstel colors with cmyk values as well as a printed in cmyk colors that I can choose from.?
Thanks

 

[butch18641]

Do you have the plus series color bridge pantone book that shows the cmyk breakdown for each pms color?

 

[Stephen Marsh]

As CMYK recipe values are device dependent, you have to consider your specific print condition, in addition to the source definition.

Do you (reliably, repeatedly) print to an industry specification or to a house condition? Chances are you don't print to the Pantone CMYK book conditions (who does?).

You mention Acrobat, do you have native files or PitStop Pro? Are the spots defined using CMYK or Lab source values?

Stephen Marsh

 

[abc]

the book was done using negatives. I am in the process of doing over the book to ctp and I need to convert the Pantone to cmyk

I take it from this that the job was originally done with negative film and conventional plates, and you are now reprinting it via CTP and want it to match, would that be correct?

 

[maas]

There's no single CMYK definition for any PMS colour so in essence to acurately match any Pantone chart you must use the same inkset and stock as the chart on the proviso that the CMYK value is in the gamut of your printer

 

[butch18641]

I'm a flexo guy, so I guess I should have mad it a little more clear that was more of a question than an answer to his problem. I don't know enough about offset to solve anyones problems! sorry about the mixup!

 

[rpl1991]

Do you have the plus series color bridge pantone book that shows the cmyk breakdown for each pms color?

No I dont have that book.

 

[rpl1991]

Yes that is correct, however I dont just want to convert the pantone to cmyk, the reason that
over the years the pantone colors have not been consistent due to the fact that the supplier
is not consistent with the color, their reason being that the colors are very light (pastels). I really
want to see a book(pantone) that will show a variety of colors that are close to the pantone but printed
in CMYK. so I can choose which cmyk combination is closest to the pantone.

 

[gordo]

I really
want to see a book(pantone) that will show a variety of colors that are close to the pantone but printed
in CMYK. so I can choose which cmyk combination is closest to the pantone.

Then you really have to print your own swatch book. It's called a color Atlas like these:
The Print Guide: The Color Atlas - helping designers to specify color

Gordo

 

[arossetti]

Do you have a previous print? What about using a spectro to measure the LAB of the pantones from previous runs?

 

[rpl1991]

Thanks for the info, I remember using one if these in a book
"The designers book" the difference in percentages were in 5 or 10% increments so there was not much to choose from. If u have to print an atlas are PDF files available or do I have to create my own?
Thanks
Jaime

 

[rpl1991]

Wish I had one of those.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

There are some PDF files available, however they may not all be practical or you may not print all pages in an offset run.

Again, unless you can print reliably and predictably, there may not be much point.

If you can print reliably and you print to an industry specification or to a house standard, and you have an ICC profile of these conditions - then it is going to be more economical to inkjet proof a colour guide than to offset print it.

I have some links and files, I’ll dig them up!

EDIT: There are many combinations of CMYK values that can achieve the same visual colour result, however this is less so with light pastel colours that do not have a significant gray component to them. So, there may be better ways to build a specific colour than the recipe values from such a guide that uses simple colour combinations.


Stephen Marsh

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Attached is a .zip archive containing four different CMYK colour chart books gathered from different sources over the years.

Hope this helps.


Stephen Marsh

 

[rich apollo]

Here's one I built years ago.