Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

gianotten

Active member
Yesterday Gene Gable wrote an article on the new Pantone GOE system.
He calls it Pantone 2.0.
More colors (2000 plus), other layout, other paper and other formulas.
And an identical ink thickness for all colors!
The software system displays Pantone in sRGB and CIE-Lab.
Is there any knowledge on the availability of new process guides?
Would there be a EURO version?
What print conditions were used? ISO 12647-2?
Any additional info is welcome.
Regards,
Henk
 
Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Henk:
Printing conditions are still dry offset. ISO12647 has not been addressed yet, since the process equivalents to the GOE system are not available at this time. Just solids and palette presentation for the designer customers. Only coated paper so far, and not a normal coated paper, but a self adhesive label paper, like FASSON, so that the stickers can be replaced back into the book or arranged in convenient color use pallettes. That's what I saw and heard yesterday.
John Lind
Cranberry Township, PA
724-776-4718
 
Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

This sounds like PANTONE still going on without adhering to ISO standards. When the hell will they learn? Why should anyone move to it when there are standards and they won't adhere to them? If they would adhere to standards, maybe we would adopt it, but if I'm running to standards and my PANTONE colors printed as CMYK don't look like they should, who's to blame? PANTONE.

Don
 
Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

I just saw the PantoneGoe White paper. It's a little bit frustrating that they don't confirm that the system is based on original CIE-Lab values and the equivalents in HTML and sRGB values. Just plain colors for the designers. It's a designers tool to spec colors. It's not a prepress tool for printers.
I think Pantone did a great marketing job. Color guides divided in color sections and chips to communicate.
We in the prepress, or the designer in applications such as Photoshop and Illustrator, have to use the digital libraries to transform the original values to CMYK.
It's the only proper way: via the output profiles selected by us. We are the guys who know what output condition (for example Fogra39) we use.
If the designer is aware of the printing conditions and has selected the proper output condition (such as the characterization data set Fogra39) or output profiles (such as ISOcoated_v2) he is able to do the transformation himself and use the CMYK percentages. If the profile has a high GCR setting a higher percentage K will be generated. By using this technique we wil get the proper percentages to build the right CMYK combination.
Of course, 40% (or even more depending on the printing condition) of these colors cannot be reproduced via process colors. Let it be!
Sell your customer 4 color plus spot! Pantone will love it, your ink vendor will love it and your salesman too!
The mayor problem Pantone will encounter is a communication problem. How to tell the user what is possible and what is the difference between old and new colors, old and new color guides and how to explain that color management systems are needed to do the proper color transformation for process colors, spotcolor proofs, digital printing etc. That's a hell of a job, I think.
For Pantone and for the international printing community.
To improve that kind of communiation, more technical data (such as the confirmation of sRGB) is needed.
And the reference to Gracol in the White Paper document is just misleading, I think!
But that's the tweeking we could force them to do.
If we and Pantone are able to bring the right message to the design world, the Goe System is an excellent tool, I think.
However, It will take more than ten years to get enough supporters for this system.
But that's most probably before Don's retirement, Ihope!

P.S.: Sorry for the typo in the subject line. Could the moderator change that line so we can retrieve the info on Pantone instead of Patone?
Thanks a lot!
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Perhaps X-Rite will pull all this together when their acquisition goes through.
One can only hope......
 
Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

"And the reference to Gracol in the White Paper document is just misleading, I think!"

Indeed, particularly as Gracol is referred to as a "standards body" which it is not.

Henk also makes an excellent point about the importance of prepress deriving the correct CMYK values based on the output profile (rather than one given from Pantone as in the Pantone process libraries, which I grown to detest...er, mistrust).

And it should be noted that since this isn't a 4/c process guide, Pantone couldn't say that they print to ISO 12647 or towards Gracol specifications or whatever (they're not using ISO 2846 compliant inks, these are spots). What is the ISO standard that they should be printing these spot inks toward? Now, If this were a process guide that didn't include specifics on ISO standards or other printing specifications, that would be pretty pathetic, but we're not at that point....yet.
 
Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

I think the burden is on the application developers to provide adequate controls to make use of the L*a*b* values in the PMS libraries.

rich
 
Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

I searched for PANTONE Goe White Paper on google.com and got:
http://www.pantone.com/downloads/articles/pdfs/GoeWhitePaper.pdf

Well, since it's been in the works for years, maybe that's why Quark 7 and Adobe latest versions all have the capability to use Lab values?

The white paper says:
"The PANTONE Colors in the GoeGuide were designed to be printed
with uniform and industry typical ink film thicknesses. This enables
equal drying times and more control for matching color on press. The
press operator can run at the same ink settings, regardless of color
being printed. As press time is one of the most expensive parts of the
printing process, the time and cost savings attributable to this feature
can be significant."

So, what thicknesses are they using? Guess it doesn't really matter since as Michael has pointed out and Henk has pointed out, that prepress is supposed to get CMYK equivalents (as close as possible) using color management and the CMYK output profile that actually describes the ink/paper combination used. Guess we all should use Relative Colorimetric, the default rendering intent in Adobe and Quark 7? Not documented anywhere. But at least we have not only HTML and sRGB equivalents (for easy picking of PANTONE color equivalents for the web), but also Lab values for easy comparison of what one has printed (on proof, press sheet) to see if it conforms to the PANTONE Lab equivalent. (if you have a spectro, and what about inter-instrument agreement? I'd like to know which spectro PANTONE used)

The Goe paper says:
"Although the new System is designed specifically for spot
color output, Pantone recognizes that users will frequently use
“process” conversions to “match” the spot colors. In cases where
spot colors are used, proofing devices generally must simulate those
colors using the capabilities of inkjet or toner-based printing systems
that have color gamuts that differ from traditional printing presses. In
other cases, the final output may be a digital printing device.
To address these needs of color-managed workflows, PANTONE Goe
uses industry standard L*a*b* color data. This allows software and
output devices to use sophisticated digital color tools including ICC
profiles and color-managed workflows to get the best possible simulation
of a spot color."

Don
 
Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

It would be nice to know how many of these colors can be reproduces on ISO 12647-2 though. I have a customer that just doesn't get the fact that less than half the original PANTONE colors (version 1?) can be reproduced in CMYK, and though my file for them use PANTONE's color bridge PC CMYK numbers and GRACoL2006_Coated1v2 ICC profile for proofs, they still change color on press (after the pressman matches the proof perfectly?!?!) Why management continues to let them do this is beyond me, and I don't see any new system and us deriving our own CMYK values fixing this situation. We have already gave custom CMYK values before using PANTONE's color bridge values, and they still OK the proof no matter what and paint on press!?!? It's crazy. They should be able to OK the proof (or color correct the numbers until the proof looks right) and the pressman match it on press and it be that simple. But no...

Don
 
Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Re: Patone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Typical ink film thickness is between .7 and 1.4 microns.

Rendering intent is only one part of the issue. If the colors could be spec'd by L*a*b* values and then converted according to the document working space or according to the document working space in conjunction with the destination space then it'd work. Currently Illustrator is tied to the Color Settings. This seems reasonable from a design perspective, but not for prepress. InDesign will simply send process L*a*b*, which is pretty weird if you think about it.

rich
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Hi Don, Such a digital document does exist. It shows which colors can be simulated in CMYK process colors. It's however not possible to distribute this document due to legal issues. I do have a digital version without the Pantone and PMS names in it. Just the Pantone numbers as used in the traditional color guides.
If you like it, I will send it directly to you.
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Well what i read from IDEA G7 pdf is that,

*"G7 is compatible with the existing ISO printing standards, in fact G7 is named “G” for its focus on the color ‘Gray’ and the “7” ink solids specified in ISO 12647-2 . While there is no direct translation between TVI curves and NPDC curves, G7 calibration typically results in TVI curves that are very similar to those in ISO 12647-2 ."*

that means G7 is compatible with _*Iso 12647-2*_
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

They are close, yes. A small visual difference. Basically GRACoL2006_Coated1v2 is 2-3% higher TVI in the midtones in each color than ISOcoatedv2 (based on FOGRA39). So small difference and about the same densities, although GRACoL2006_Coated1v2 uses G7 method, which is based on aiming for solid Lab values and not set-in-stone density, and aiming for NPDC (gray tone) curves for K and CMY and not set-in-stone TVI for each separation. Both, as well as the new PANTONE Goe definitely requires spectro-densitometers IMO, but which one, so that we can know we are using an instrument that is very close in agreement that PANTONE used or the specification or standards bodies use?

Don
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Eddy Hagen, trendwatcher and director of the Belgian Graphic Arts and Media Research organisation VGIC complained that Pantone did not specify the sRGB color space in detail. On this blog I had the same observation. Pantone was aware of this lack of technical information and modified their PDF. The Pantone Goe White Paper was modified and they replaced the old version. Bravo!. However, they are not aware that the file name was not changed. That's bad, I think.
I suggest to get rid of the old white paper. Download the actual version and use that. On the Blog
The text on the printceo blog reads:

VIGC’s Eddy Hagen Takes of A Closer Look at Pantone Goe
Posted by Adam Dewitz on September 13, 2007

The new Pantone Goe color system has been getting a lot of buzz within the industry. Some hail it for its vast improvements over the PMS system, others are weary that the Goe system provides no real incentive over the current PMS product.

Eddy Hagen managing director and trend watcher at VIGC (Flemish Innovation Center for Graphic Communication) sent the PrintCEO Blog an open letter.
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Don,
Pantone gave an official comment on a few questions on the designorati site. It reads as follows:
“Pantone supports the precepts of color managed workflows. As such, any application that supports ICC profiles would be able to translate our color data into a properly defined ICC space (either color or device space) for further use. One caveat… the transforms used in ICC profiling are not necessarily the “best” results that are obtainable in print. Rather, the transforms make a number of assumptions in the creation of CMYK data that should be validated before trusting the output for final CMYK printing. As an example, our research into the area of gamut mapping and our extensive licensing of digital print devices and creation of hundreds of device specific look up tables (LUT’s) has shown us that a direct mapping of ICC profiles to a basic CMYK space typically needs 3 to 7 iterations or additional adjustments to achieve Pantone’s quality level of results. Generic SWOP profiles do not necessarily achieve this result in and of themselves. In addition, the mapping of spot colors into the CMYK space early in the production cycle presents other potential drawbacks to achieving the highest possible quality of PANTONE Colors. When PANTONE Colors are converted to CMYK they may lose their named color identity. As such, any further downstream processing that understands PANTONE Colors (e.g. Artworks / PitStop or EFI RIP’s) would not be able to apply a tuned look up table (LUT) to achieve better results. Rather, the entire page would be treated as one generic CMYK image. This would mean that any changes by the pre-press or press operators to do global color changes (e.g. bump up the magenta) would move ALL the colors – including Pantone’s. Pantone highly recommends that applications retain spot colors in their output formats and we support a “late binding” approach to CMYK generation where the final separations and transforms into CMYK space happen as late in the process as possible and with known device specific print conditions rather than “generic” transforms into a middle-of-the-road CMYK space.”
I hope this info helps.
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

>the transforms used in ICC profiling are not necessarily the “best” results that are obtainable in print......has shown us that a direct mapping of ICC profiles to a basic CMYK space typically needs 3 to 7 iterations or additional adjustments to achieve Pantone’s quality level of results.

Based on my experience, I get results MUCH closer to the solid coated Lab values by performing the conversion myself (without iteration) than using Pantone's pubished Process values. Pantone does make a good point regarding a late binding approach, and about using known device specific conditions when available, but their process guide isn't worth much to me. This brings to mind how Pantone derives those process values anyway. According to their website the utilize "ICC profile-based conversions to determine the starting point values, which were then visually tweaked to provide the closest possible simulation of PANTONE Colors using a digital workflow" I have to wonder why color matching wouldn't be done numerically based on Lab measurements rather than "visual tweaking".
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Michael,

May I ask what rendering intent you use to get the MUCH closer match that you speak of?

Don
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Relative colorimetric. In all fairness to Pantone, in some/many cases the process coated values given are pretty close visually to what I derive. But, take a recent job here that needed a process equivilant of PMS 7528 for example. Pantone's process equivilants were'nt even close.
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

So the default Relative Colorimetric works well enough. Thanks Michael.

I have done my own testing here and most of the colors that my problem customer uses, the PANTONE color bridge (PC) numbers, give close visual appearance to those I get from using color management. Some are visually not close to what I get. I've tried combinations of the rendering intents using the same official GRACoL2006_Coated1v2 profile and although I get different CMYK numbers almost always, depending on intent used, they all look pretty close overall to each other and to color bridge when printed on GRACoL2006_Coated1v2. Your input just confirms again to me that using the default will get one as close as the color bridge, and all are close enough to each other that no matter which one chooses to use - PANTONE PC color bridge or color management with the default rendering intent Relative Colorimetric - it should be fine. I guess we'll just do the same thing to the PANTONE Goe colors: Color management with the default rendering intent Relative Colorimetric and the correct output ICC profile.

In fact, after looking at it again just now, most of these problem colors just CAN'T be reproduced in CMYK! No wonder we keep having problems no matter what we do for this customer! And no, PANTONE Goe will not solve this, we know. There will just be more colors we can't reproduce in CMYK than we have now.

Thanks again Michael.

Don
 
Re: Pantone 2.0 and ISO print standards

Henk, regarless of what PANTONE says, many of these colors just can't be reproduced in CMYK alone. THIS is what they need to be saying, because it's the truth. And how many of us would actually do 6-7 iterations to try and get the color as close as we can, when it's still far off and there's no hope in matching it anyways?

What was the name of that printing that matches 97% of existing spot colors? It'll probably be able to match about the same percentage of PANTONE Goe colors. It's looking like printing in just CMYK is going to be going out of style. I know if we are ever to make this one customer happy trying to match the existing PANTONE colors we'll have to adopt printing in more than four process inks.

Thanks Henk, for this reply and the PDFs you sent me. As far as the PDFs you sent me, they weren't really useful to me unfortunately. What would be helpful is seeing a Delta E value of the ISOcoatedv2 printed colors vs. the original PANTONE color. This would only really be useful in a list. It would help to show that these colors are not reproducible on the international standard (seeing the very high Delta E values, which we could also show our customers). Of course, why would anyone go through the trouble when we have the PANTONE guides that show a visual side-by-side of the original and the CMYK printed? They wouldn't and shouldn't go through the trouble.

Thanks again.

Don
 

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