Hexachrome colors and Pantone Colors - what's the connection?

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Hi, All -

Recently I had a customer provide his Hexachrome corporate colors, which we then had to find the Pantone equivalent colors for. I managed to come up with something agreeable to him and thought nothing more of it. Now I have another customer making the same request. Hmmm. I think I'm missing something. Can someone educate me in this matter? What are Hexachrome colors exactly? And how do I find the Pantone equivalents? All info or links will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
julie

 

[DavidMa]

Re: Hexachrome colors and Pantone Colors - what's the connection?

here's a little bit from Pantone:

http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/pantone.aspx?ca=6&pg=19680&

 

[LoneGoose]

Re: Hexachrome colors and Pantone Colors - what's the connection?

Hexachrome is one form of high-fidelity printing (HiFi printing). It adds orange and green onto CMYK to improve the 'brilliance' of your print.

My answer to your client would be that they should be giving you the PMS number, not making you search for it (which will ultimately end in tears...). It's a proprietary system and you need to be licenced to print in it.

A hexachrome guide is not included in the usual Pantone bundle, but they are available if you feel the cost is justifiable.

Good luck!

 

[[email protected]]

Re: Hexachrome colors and Pantone Colors - what's the connection?

Thanks, Nicholas and David! Huge help.

julie

 

[jstanzione]

Re: Hexachrome colors and Pantone Colors - what's the connection?

Dear Nicholas, David and Julie:

I have read the posts concerning PANTONE Hexachrome from December 2007, and wanted to clear up a few misconceptions.

From Nicholas's post on December 19 - +"Hexachrome is one form of high-fidelity printing (HiFi printing). It adds orange and green onto CMYK to improve the 'brilliance' of your print."+

This isn't entirely accurate. PANTONE Hexachrome is a unique six-color inkset, and NOT a CMYK ++ system. In other words, the Hexachrome cyan, magenta, yellow and to a lesser extent, black, are unique, cleaner and more chromatic than their SWOP CMYK counterparts. When combined with the Hexachrome Orange and Green, these inks far surpass the gamut available in conventional four-color process printing. However, the same cannot be said of simply adding orange and green to SWOP CMYK.

From the same post, he wrote: +It's a proprietary system and you need to be licenced to print in it.+

This is absolutely not the case. Pantone does offer an Authorized Printer Program, which printers can qualify for which allows them to display 'Authorized PANTONE Hexachrome Printer' signage and/or banners in their advertising. However, this is offered to printers to help them market PANTONE Hexachrome printing services to their clients. It is not REQUIRED that a printer be an 'Authorized Printer' in order to print with PANTONE Hexachrome. Any printer who's equipment meets the requirements can print with PANTONE Hexachrome inks.

I do agree that clients should not be submitting PANTONE Hexachrome colors for matching, unless they intend to have the jobs printed in PANTONE Hexachrome. Further, to attempt to 'match' PANTONE Hexachrome colors with PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM solid color equivalents doesn't make much more sense than attempting to match CMYK colors with PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM solid colors, although customers have been doing that for years, as well.

I hope you find this information helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact me via the support Web site at http://www.askpantone.com if I can be of further assistance.

Edited by: John Stanzione on Jan 8, 2008 11:45 AM