'Pantone Colour/CMYK/etc Matching For Idiots' advice, please..?

jitterbug

New member
Okay, so my educational background (Photography/Illustration/Design) has not been a particularly technical one. I've just taken on what I thought would be a very simple job of finding CMYK/RGB/Web colours for a number of given pantones to be used in branding.

I thought, in my innocence, that I would simply pick each colour in Photoshop (for example), go to the picker, and copy down the different values from there. (I know and accept, of course, that it can be difficult to get an exact visual match for certain colours.) However, I noticed that the numerical values I got this way varied a little from the example given with the job.

Then, I found a couple of examples from Pantone's Color Bridge book; I tried (in Illustrator this time) picking the colours I had found and then converting them to CMYK, to see how close they came to the 'official' conversions. The answer is, not very.
One example: Pantone 1767C. Illustrator found: C-0/M-27/Y-12/K-0.
Color Bridge has this as: C-0/M-32/Y-10/K-0.
Photoshop thinks it's: C-0/M-38/Y-9/K-0 (!!!)
This is enough to make quite a marked difference.

What I do not understand is the inconsistency. Surely if Pantone is an industry standard, then there should be a set of standard values for RGB/CMYK/Web that are simply pre-loaded into software such as CS3 etc. Why the variation..?!

I've tried looking around on the web, and I'm just getting a migraine. I cannot find a simple answer to my question: why are they all different, and how does this work?

If you had this job, then how would you attempt to find the values?

Many thanks in advance...
 
Jitterbug,

I understand your frustration. I've always wished (naively) there was a reliable standard sort of conversion for Pantone solids to Process CMYK... it would make things so much easier. But, I understand why that's not the case.

Pantone inks are meant to be special colors that can't quite be hit by a simple CMYK mix. They are typically out of the the CMYK color gamut. What this means is that there are only so many colors that can be faithfully represented by using just CMYK.

The inconsistency has to do with how far out of the CMYK gamut the Pantone is. Some are closer than others. The closer they are to the CMYK color gamut they are the easier it is to simulate using just CMYK (you need to be careful to not surpass a certain amount of ink coverage in doing so, though). Some colors you just won't hit, though, so you have to settle for getting as close as possible and that's a matter of opinion.

As for the conversion inconsistency between applications that's a good question. They might just not care because it's not going to be exact no matter how you convert the color. However, it would be nice if Adobe would at least keep it consistent throughout their software.

The only way to find a good conversion value (IMHO) is to color correct. That's what we do when we need to simulate a Pantone used in one of our printed products in a CMYK catalog/mailer etc. In order to do that you should have color managed proofers running special icc profiles and have a reliable Pantone source to compare your converted output to. Even then you should have special lighting so that you can view the two side by side correctly. Also you have to take into account the type of paper the final product will be printed on since paper color affects the overall appearance of color... that's what the icc profiles do... simulate the paper color etc. No matter how white you think your paper is it's going to be at least a bit darker than what you see on screen.

Well, enough of my convoluted explanation. I hope it helps you more than it confuses you.

~Soilworker
 
Thank you very much Soilworker- that was very helpful, actually.

It has helped to clarify things somewhat; I did understand (sort of!) the gamut issues with CMYK reproduction, it just does my head in that the various bits of software have such wildly varying ideas on how to match each colour. I just want to be able to provide the information for my client properly without them finding down the line that I've done it 'wrong'.
*sigh*

Thanks again. :)
 
Soilworker makes the excellent point that most Pantone colors cannot be hit by ANY combination of CMYK, and therefore any conversion is just a rough simulation. Pantone makes their money by creating colors that are visually different from colors that can by created by CMYK, so they have no real motivation to make it easier for you (or Adobe) match those colors. They want to sell INK, not just swatch books.

One reason for inconsistent CMYK values is that there are different kinds of CMYK. Every combination of press, inks & paper can produce a different color with the same CMYK values, so CMYK numbers only have meaning within the context of the printing condition they have been created for. That's why there are publicly available datasets and profiles published by groups like FOGRA, SWOP & GRACoL, which define a sort of average visual appearance for a given type of printing on a given class of paper (#1 coated, #3 coated, uncoated, etc.). So any software that is going to convert a PANTONE into CMYK has to consider what kind of CMYK printing you are going to be doing. First it has to look-up the L*a*b* value of the pantone color, then it has to translate to the color profile you have selected in your color settings using the rendering intent you have specified. If you pick a different profile in your color settings, you will get different CMYK values out (try it!).

I really don't know why Illustrator and Photoshop can't agree - They don't even agree on the LAB values of PANTONE colors, so their CMYK or RGB translations are of course going to be different. You would think that at least they would have the same LAB look-up tables, but apparently not. Maybe someone on this forum knows why they have different LAB start values.

Another factor is that even within a single CMYK "color space" (like GRACoL2006_Coated1), a given LAB color can be rendered by a variety of CMYK values, especially muddier greens and browns that use all 4 inks. If you want to see wildly divergent CMYK values, lookup 385 C in Photoshop and Illustrator! The point is that just because two programs give you different CMYK values, doesn't mean one is better than the other or that they will even appear visually different when printed.

Wow, what a minefield! Just as PANTONE wants it to be! Soilworker is correct in that you may just have to print out a bunch of swatches on a proofing system that is set-up to match your printing condition as closely as possible and pick the one that works best for you. IF you can get your hands on an official LAB look-up table from PANTONE, then you can convert to the correct profile and get good starting CMYK values, but you may want to do further tweaks from there.

By the way, PANTONE isn't an industry standard, they have just been around for a long time and are very well known. They are in it to make a buck, not make color matching easy.

-Todd Shirley
 
Hi Werby- and thanks for the further clarification. :)

I had noticed that selecting different CMYK working spaces produced different results, but wanted to keep my question simple, in the hope that the answers would then be simple enough for me to follow! ;)

As far as opting for one colour space or type of printing in order to aid the selection process? Here is the problem; this is for a set of guidelines that will be sent out internationally by the client so that different 'branches' keep to the brand colours consistently. Even if we were to specify the workspaces/printing processes to be used along with the various values/logos etc, I cannot imagine these sorts of specifics being adhered to. Meh!
The best I could do, I suppose, is aim for average- i.e., which is the most commonly used colourspace? :confused:

On the up side, I'm finally filling in some of the gaps my degree left me with, with your generous help. Thank you both!
 
Pantone inks are meant to be special colors that can't quite be hit by a simple CMYK mix. They are typically out of the the CMYK color gamut. What this means is that there are only so many colors that can be faithfully represented by using just CMYK.

Sorry I think a slight missunderstanding. What makes a Pantone colour a Pantone colour has nothing to do with the gamut. Many Pantone colours are reproducable in CMYK. The difference is that they are out of the bucket colours. Yes there are Pantone colour that cannot be translated to CMYK, but it is not the lack of ability to reproduce a colour that gives it a "pantone"ness.
Some pantone colours are used to print with 2 colours or large solid areas, or match with textiles, all sorts of reasons.

Neither Pantone colours nor CMYK colours are independant of the substrate, paper. (Compare Pantone 116 C and Pantone 116 U)Same ink on different paper gives different results. This is why in recent software there is the possibility of using standard LAB values for pantone. The LAB is then converted colometrically to the CMYK values of your output profile, which if you have a good output profile describing your process will give better accuracy.
 
We are all astounded by your vast knowledge, Lukas, but I was only speaking in general terms considering the background of the audience at hand and for the particular question. Sorry if my phrasing might be a bit off or not quite in depth enough for your liking.

The bottom line is that in order for Jitterbug to obtain a good match, regardless of what makes a Pantone a Pantone, he/she should, as I stated, color correct taking the paper into consideration, and proof on a color controlled proofer with profiles set to simulate various papers until a desirable simulation is reached. Even if LAB values are used.

We're all here to help each other, not thrash the way questions are answered.
 
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Sorry if you took it as getting at you, I wasn't getting at you in any way, it was not intended.
Seen the argument that "Pantone is not reproducable with CMYK", and just wanted to stop the missconception spreading (seen it in other forums too).
The idea comes from I want a bluer blue so I have to go Pantone and add a fifth colour. But we often print gray pantones, not because they are not reproducable, but because we do not want raster points or missregistration. This is why at times it is good to know that a Pantone colour can sometimes replace a CMYK with identical colour value.
Was not at all questioning your mothodology for gaining a proof that would predict the results. A proof is after all the only "dressrehearsal" we get before printing a job, and usually the contract that binds the customers expectations.

My other half of the message was meerly to point out that there is a general sloppines in using pantone scale and often find customers quoting a pantone coated colour even if printed on uncoated. To be aware of what the pantone system is and how it works.
 
I understand what you're saying, Lukas. No hard feelings... just having a crabby morning... I apologize. Perhaps just a miscommunication/misunderstanding then. I may have partially mis-spoke about CMYK/Pantone matching but given the nature of the post I didn't feel the need to go so in depth but you did bring up good points and believe me, they are one's that frustrate me on a daily basis in my dealings with certain folks.

Cheers!

~Soilworker
 
I've found, in my experience, that the Color Bridge conversions are more accurate, compared to any app. We did a bunch of tests on our Epsons, and even the Color Bridge colors needed some tweaking, depending on the substrate. There's a lot of variance, even when you look in the Color Bridge swatch books.

We created color palettes, in InDesign, with our custom brand palettes. About 70 percent of our design files ultimately end up in InDesign. In theory, we can just have anyone working for that brand load the palette, and work in those colors.

If you're picked a printer for this particular job, they may be willing to run some pres tests. We've run a number of 6 and 8 color press tests, to compare PMS/CMYK variations on specific paper stocks. I have seen brand swatch books, for companies, that have their colors printed, in CMYK and PMS, on their brand stocks. Sometimes instead of CMYK values, they have LAB values printed in the book. It seems like a lot of work, but in the long run, it saves a lot of headache.
 
Wow this is a great question! and you've already got some great advice. I think Padzilla is right on when he says the (Bridge) book is the best one to use. The one with the ACTUAL PMS and the Pantone FACTORY BUILD (CMYK +other colors lab, rgb) is the way to go. The reason the colors differ is that special pigments are used in the pantone inks that are NOT in CMYK, take reflex blue for example. The pigment that gives reflex it's "SNAP" isn't possible with CMYK inks. Invariably, because office color printers and inkjets are optimized for RGB, they produce a "Corporate Blue" very easily, when converted to CMYK though, PMS colors in the dark blue ranges almost all, tend to go too purple.

RELY ON THE BOOK! (values) when converting to CMYK, the CMYK shows you what is going to happen on paper at least, also realize that some workflow systems (I.e. prinergy might use their OWN lookup table for colors) in addition to the different ones in say Quark, Illustrator and photoshop. I use the pantone SOLID coated builds when going to spot color, regardless of stock. (they seem to me more accurate than the uncoated colors), and PRE CONVERT any PMS BUILDS to BOOK VALUES (bridge) before sending postscript to imaging. Meaning postscript for 4 color, goes to the rip four color and the rip is not deciding anything with regard to conversion of the spot colors. Remember, if you rely on a 6 or 8 color inkjet, and you're only using CMYK on press, the chance of you hitting that perfect half shade like the inkjet can is, pretty remote. From what i'm told Hexachrome is less than 5% of the market STILL and Stochastic/FM/AM/Crystal Raster, Staccato, is even harder to push up or down as far as conventional CMYK (non stochastic) like the adjustment range on that is less than conventional.

Have a question, show your client the bridge book, if they're corporate, they'll almost always OPT for a 5-6 color job (CMYK + PMS) over CMYK alone with "approximated" colors.
 
PANTONE COLOR BRIDGE; Consistent 'Pantone to CMYK' conversions within applications

PANTONE COLOR BRIDGE; Consistent 'Pantone to CMYK' conversions within applications

I have read through the thread on this, and wanted to add some additional information.

PANTONE COLOR BRIDGE COATED was launched in April 2005, and was a direct replacement for the PANTONE solid to process guide coated, circa 2000. PANTONE COLOR BRIDGE represented a complete re-engineering of the product, which produced a completely new set of CMYK simulation values.

Within the Adobe Creative Suite 3 applications, you will find a specific library named as PANTONE COLOR BRIDGE CMYK PC. This library is produced in CMYK color space, and uses explicit CMYK data provided to Adobe by Pantone. If you are using PANTONE COLOR BRIDGE COATED, you must select your colors from the PANTONE COLOR BRIDGE CMYK PC library, in order for your CMYK values to be consistent with the Guide. If colors are selected from the PANTONE SOLID color libraries, and 'converted' to CMYK, you are using Adobe's internal algorithms to make the conversion, and your values will not be consistent to the Guide, or necessarily within the various CS applications.

If you are using an earlier version of Adobe Creative Suite, there is an installer available free of charge to load the PANTONE COLOR BRIDGE libraries. Please contact Pantone directly for details on how to obtain the installer.

Best regards,

John Stanzione
Manager - Technical Support
Pantone, Inc.

Support Web site: http://www.askpantone.com
 
Does anyone have a preferred application for the conversion of a Pantone (Lab) color to CMYK? Is there any program, other than Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, out there that can do a better conversion? This is assuming that you have a Pantone or Lab color that you want to reproduce and a good working ICC profile to feed the program? I would especially be interested in all the Pantone colors that you can not hit that are out of gamut, but have this program come the closest match in CMYK without constantly color correcting till someone visually and subjectively says, "We can not get any closer." Thanks.
 
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One more precision after the reply of John Stanzione: if you are european or working for the european market, use the Color Bridge CMYK EC (and not PC)! This one is also available in Adobe's apps (and in the Pantone surival kit) and is intended to work with european inks. The translations in CMYK will be far more accurate especially for some difficult colors like deep saturated blues.
 
Pantone frustration!

Pantone frustration!

I am so frustrated with trying to match cmyk to Pantone. If the bridge is a more updated version of the solid Pantone to process guide, then why are the colors so different. For example, solid Pantone 167 is WAY different from Bridge 167. If we can't even count on the 2 book colors being the same, how do we know which cmyk breakdown to go by?

What good is updating the system when the initial colors are so different to start with? Shouldn't pantone 167 be the same color in both books? I thought the conversion values were different because the bridge was supposed to be more accurate. But all it's doing is giving me a whole different color!

Instead of making things better, Pantone just made everything more confusing. And now they're adding Goe to the mess. If us printing folk can't get a handle on all this color confusion, how are our clients supposed to understand this? Am I just missing something here?
 
Pantone is the colour in the Bucket. It can vary on substrate quite significantly. Pantone is a recipie for mixing colors, but if you want to describe an actual colour use a Spectrophotometer like the xRite munkey (unsure of spelling) measure your patch and write the Lab values. Then convert to the CMYK values of your output proccess.
Pantone did not intentionally make things complex. Reality is complex and they are trying to make it simpler. You can't blame chemistry for not being simple. The problem arises if we start teaching things we don't understand, then we'll end up with some variant of chinese wispers (a childrens game where you wisper information and see what you end up with after a certain numper of itterations).

The question must surely be what colour I will percieve on paper and any CMYK values in any application must be of secondary importance. The destination rather than the road?
 
Printing Pantone is very simple: buy the bucket with the respective ink from Pantone and define it as a 5th color in your layout and if you print on exactly the same paper as the Pantone color guide and leave it in the drawer for about the same amount in months (so the ink can dry back) it might just look the same.

If you print on Coated, Uncoated or Matte paper, you just pull out the respective guide, but you only need to buy one bucket of ink as they refer to just the same inks.

Already if you print tints, things can become more complicated as each print process has its own halftone behavior. Sheetfed, web, gravure, flexo ... - and that's BEFORE you try to emulate them on a CMYK process.

Once you try to bridge the gap to CMYK things can really turn ugly and even more so if you try to establish a common CMYK standard value for international printing. This simply is not possible - you can't provide a single CMYK value which will look identical no matter where and how it is printed, so why risk it?

You can make suggestions, but these CMYK guide values are to be understood as guidelines - not as absolute references. And if you do so you have to specify the print standard to which these references actually apply. Like the PC or EC version of the Bridge guides.

Especially in packaging companies go a different route by publishing ink drawdowns and step wedges of their corporate colors with Lab values and tolerance values. Even there things can be tricky, so one big packaging customer even specifies what measurement device to use, and what measurement geometry settings on this device - and yes - you have to send your device annually in to the manufacturer of your device to get it recalibrated. But using these strict guidelines helps this company to achieve very accurate color matching on a world wide basis. Their color cards even have an expiration date, which takes into account the fading of the ink and they must not be used any longer after that date.

This way design and print companies working with this client can specify their own recipes to match these colors and these recipes can also vary depending on what substrate gets printed on. As this is a packaging customer, these colors usually get not split into CMYK, but substrates vary from plastic labels to corrugated cardboard.

If you look closely you see the difference:
- Pantone is selling you fixed recipe ink buckets and gives you a couple of different guides which give you an idea of how this particular ink can print on a select variety of papers (like Coated, Uncoated, Matte). If your paper differs, expect variations
- this packaging customer is specifying on the other hand the visual appearance of their corporate colors and it is up to the printer to mix the ink properly to get on what ever substrate is to be used an accurate match (they have already an ink supplier and base recipes for many common print materials, so it usually is only a mild change in the recipe to be used locally)

So it is inks versus visuals.

Many designers mix this up and understand Pantone colors actually as visual references instead of ink recipes.

Also as pointed out several Pantone colors are not achievable in most CMYK print processes. Those are not the majority, but usually these are the ones designers like to pick as they stand out.

Lukas on the other hand quoted a very important reason to even use Pantone colors which are in gamut: to avoid screening. As a designer with an inkjet based digital proofer the difference might not be clear, but if you use as a background tint some camouflage style brownish colour and want a 10pt white text on it, it can look great on your proofer, but turns unreadable on press, because that colour likely is a screened pattern made up of all 4 channels and the white text just disappears in the dots. Print the same as a solid spot and your text is crisp and sharp.

The best way to specify corporate color appearances is to get solids printed along with step wedges on cards that get labeled with the color name like "CustomerXYZ-Red" and "CustomerXYZ-Blue". Note the Lab value you would like to see next to the solid and specify measuring geometry (like D50 2degree 0/45 and "no filter") and an expiration date of maximum 3 years (if the sample is kept protected from light in a folder). By using a custom color name you avoid that your local printer will pull his whatever version of Pantone book (maybe one from 1996 - see the print on the back or spine of it) and matches your Pantone color name to his book - which might look markedly different to the one you used when you specified that color. Especially if the books are of different years and for different markets (America, Europe, ...)
 
One thing I'd like to add. The reason photoshop's build is so different from Illy MAY be because you are picking the Pantone coated library in Photoshop, Photoshop then converts this spot colour using whatever profile you're using in your working space. If you want closer correlation with Illy's book values use the Pantone process instead as these values are already CMYK and are not converted with a profile.
 
Different LAB values

Different LAB values

The reason photoshop's build is so different from Illy MAY be because you are picking the Pantone coated library in Photoshop, Photoshop then converts this spot colour using whatever profile you're using in your working space. If you want closer correlation with Illy's book values use the Pantone process instead as these values are already CMYK and are not converted with a profile.

Yeah, but why do Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign have different LAB values for Pantone colors? Of course you are not going to get the same CMYK values if you start from different LAB numbers. Can ANYONE tell me why these programs all use different LAB values??

Here's an example: Pantone Solid Coated library, 363 C
Photoshop CS3: L=51, a=-39, b=39
Illustrator CS3: L=53, a=-40, b=43
InDesign CS3: L=53, a=-47, b=46
Also, my inkjet RIP has built in look-up tables (apparently licensed from Pantone), and this is what it says:
L=50, a=-42, b=42

OK, wow, that's a lot of delta-E! Which one is right?

-Todd Shirley
 

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