L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

[blarrabee]

Is there a "Pantone recomended L.a.b. value" for their PMS colors?

 

[gordo]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

Yes. For example, PANTONE 485 C is 48.92, 67.16, 52.6.
They may be available as an exportable document from your workflow. Photoshop will give you the closest rounded up value as it does not do decimal values.

best, gordo

 

[blarrabee]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

where did you get those values? i checked photoshop and got 49, 68, 52. i checked InDesign and Illustrator and get 53, 70, 55

i check my spectrodensimeter and get completely different 51, 66, 49.

ugh

 

[gordo]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

The Lab values 48.92, 67.16, 52.6 for PMS 485 C are from Pantone published Oct '07 as supplied to a vendor. The values you got from PShop 49, 68, 52 appear to be the same basic values but rounded up as PShop does not do decimals. Someone with a better knowledge of InDesign and Illustrator than I have might be able to say why you got 53, 70, 55 from those applications. The Lab values you get from a spectro measuring a Pantone swatch book will be subject to the integrity of the swatch book (age, exposure to light, press variation, etc.) and your instrument's calibration.

bet, gordo

 

[michaelejahn]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

@ Tim,

It may be that you have a different default setting in Pshop, or it may be that you have color management policy messing with you, and as you fail to mention WHICH version, well, I can only guess that you may NOT be using CS3....

to support Gordon, Pantone LICENCES the Lab Values to vendors of workflow systems, digital printing systems and ink jet manufacturers to enable them to better support reliable simulation of the colors, in the case where that vendor wants to place the Pantone logo and use Pantone messaging on that product (which of course, adds value to that system or device)

Now, having said that, Pantone was (back in the days of Photoshop version 1) well - reluctant (to put it mildly) to release such information to ISV (like Adobe for example) where they can reap the benefit of Pantones hard work and proprietary color names (and values) - without asking for some money (which many ISV choose to not pay...)

So, I think around version 2.5 or so, the Knoll brothers (Adobe Photoshop inventors) did their own hack and populated the application with what one might call "bootleg" LAB values, that were often at odds with what Pantone might have suggested (this was also true of the RGB or CMYK builds)

Now of course, everyone is playing nice in the sand box, and if you upgrade and pay attention, you can use Adobe CS3 and get the same values across the suite - and pitstop will simply 'report' what it found in the PDF, and assuming there is no output intent messing with the spot color values, spot colors should be all the same...

good luck, and this gives me something to work on tonight (one you tell me if you are on CS#, otherwise, check your settings - can't help you much more than that !

 

[gordo]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

Hi Michael,

I got the same different values as Brad did and I'm using CS3 - PShop does not agree with InDesign or Illustrator at least for PMS 485.
But I'm no expert in color Bridge, Indy or Illustrator. Let us know what you find out.

gordo

 

[blarrabee]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

I got those values using CS2. I haven't checked my versions of CS3.

What settings might be causing this anomaly?

How might I get access to these Lab Values? I understand that this info is not free, but I've scoured the Pantone website and see very little mention of anything having to do with Lab values. These would be wonderful to know as I have a client that is very finicky about their red amongst other colors.

Thanks for the help.

Brad

 

[michaelejahn]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

@ Brad

you asked "How might I get access to these Lab Values? "

What Lab Values ?

The libraries that ship with CS3 are, well, the libraries that ship with CS3, so, I would assume you would need to purchase CS3 to get these libraries...

or are you asking about the libraies that are in a RIP ?

ah, grasshopper - seek ye thine answer to question 15 in the Pantone FAQ;

[http://www.pantone.com/downloads/articles/pdfs/GoefAQs.pdf|http://www.pantone.com/downloads/articles/pdfs/GoefAQs.pdf]

Now, I need to pause and ask - what are you trying to accomplish - is this some fishing expedition, or are you having a real word spot color problem that need a solution ?

Edited by: Michael Jahn on Jul 17, 2008 1:49 AM

 

[blarrabee]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

all i am looking for is the L.a.b. values which i should be hoping to get on my spectrodensitometer when i check a color on a press sheet.

something like PMS 485 C = L48.92, A67.16, B52.6

 

[rich apollo]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

Brad, make sure you're looking at the same book in each application. Looking at InDesign and Photoshop CS3 I get identical Lab values, except for Photoshop's rounding.

 

[michaelejahn]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

@ Brad

I do appreciate why you would like a valid source that would provide indisputable LAB values for all Pantone colors.

Yes, well, if you read item 15, you now know that Pantone protects this information for what they probably feel are valid business reasons.

I do not work for or represent Pantone, but will share that perhaps it might make the best sense for you to buy the Pantone Color Cue 2 devive.

Four Pantone libraries, suited to different professions, or around 9,000 colors, are preinstalled. Readings can be saved and converted to different color spaces, including CMYK, sRGB, HTML, Lab, and XYZ, while you can record a two second sound byte reminder for each color being saved.

so.. having said that...

While I fully appreciate your very logical desire of using your spectrophotometer to measure either a printed pantone swatch in a fan book...

-- or a press sheet ...

and have them magically match the values you read in your applications....

That may be a bit of wishful thinking !

The Pantone books, like any other printed material, vary a little from book to book.

In addition to that, each color with shiftover time differently - this difference with shift over time as it is exposed to light - light is indeed destructive, as I am sure you have seen first hand when viewing any menu displayed in the store front window of an Asian restaurant - the pigment used to make Magenta-ish colors often degrade to nothing much faster than the others...

Pantone does quite a bit of testing related to this, placing printed sheets under different ligting conditions and measuring them after a period of time - this is why you will always be advised to never leave you pantone books exposed to light - that is, use them, then put them into a light-safe drawer or case.

now a quick word about getting Adobe Applications to behave the same...

I have learned the following from a friend at Adobe.

"Adobe is supplied a single set of libraries from Pantone which have the alternate values available in various ways (CMYK, LAB, etc) and each application chooses the alternate that makes the most sense for it. ID and Acrobat uses LAB, since they have a rich color model. Illustrator uses CMYK, since it doesn’t."

okay, to further expand on that, I discovered the following Technical note at the Adobe web site...

[http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=325905|http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=325905]

from the above link;

330728: CMYK values of PANTONE swatches are different in Illustrator CS and Photoshop CS

You must set InDesign CS3 and CS2 and Illustrator CS3 and CS2 to use Lab values that are in the library; this is not the default setting for either application. When you set InDesign CS3 and CS2 and Illustrator CS3 and CS2 to use the Lab values, you can encode alternate colors for spot colors using the same Lab values. If spot colors are converted to process colors, then Illustrator CS3 and CS2 and InDesign CS3 and CS2 convert those Lab values to CMYK using the Profile selected at print time or using the document profile if the conversion-to process happens before print.

There is no setting to use Lab values in Illustrator or InDesign in versions earlier than CS2. Neither application used different Lab Pantone values; both were designed to use the Pantone CMYK values to define color appearance, while Photoshop uses Lab. This was changed In InDesign and Illustrator CS2.

Okay, that is all the time i can spend on this, hope that helped !

 

[serzin]

Re: L.a.b. Values of Pantone 485

> you asked "How might I get access to these Lab Values? "
> What Lab Values ?
Official and open for all prepress community Lab values from Pantone. Now color Pantone 485C don't exists. Pantone 485C in Adobe library have one color(Lab), in Gretag software - second, in one PANTONE® FORMULA GUIDE - third, in another PANTONE® FORMULA GUIDE - fourth and so on. The only real way for precise work with spot colors now is printing sample. Customer, guys in inks mixing station and printer must have the *same* printing sample.

Edited by: Sergey Zinchenko on Jul 18, 2008 4:59 AM