Pantone: + or not?
- Thread starter Dario
- Start date
Bret Hesler
Well-known member
There are a bunch of additional colors in the 2xxx range.
CSF
Well-known member
May 11 2010 the Pantone Plus System was introduced. Info below is from Pantone press release at the time and information provided to re-sellers.
The PLUS SERIES Colors are printed using the same 14 Basic Color Inks as the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM. One new difference – and advantage – is that all the new solid colors are printed at a uniform ink thickness, which makes them easier to match on press.
Pantone has announced Pantone Plus, an update of and replacement for its well-known Pantone Matching System.
“Pantone Plus takes what designers and printers know and love about the Pantone Matching System and supercharges it with a host of new features, colors, and digital tools,” said Ron Potesky, senior vice president and general manager of Pantone in a statement announcing the update. “The Plus Series provides designers with greater freedom for selecting, specifying, and matching color. And, since the Pantone Plus Series is based on the widely used Pantone Matching System, there’s no training or new equipment required to start pushing the boundaries of creativity.”
The new Pantone Plus Series offers a number of new features and capabilities, including the chromatic arrangement of colors, an expanded palette of spot colors, additional new metallics, and a broader range of neons. All books in the Plus Series are printed on text-weight paper.
The PLUS SERIES Colors are printed using the same 14 Basic Color Inks as the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM. One new difference – and advantage – is that all the new solid colors are printed at a uniform ink thickness, which makes them easier to match on press.
Pantone has announced Pantone Plus, an update of and replacement for its well-known Pantone Matching System.
“Pantone Plus takes what designers and printers know and love about the Pantone Matching System and supercharges it with a host of new features, colors, and digital tools,” said Ron Potesky, senior vice president and general manager of Pantone in a statement announcing the update. “The Plus Series provides designers with greater freedom for selecting, specifying, and matching color. And, since the Pantone Plus Series is based on the widely used Pantone Matching System, there’s no training or new equipment required to start pushing the boundaries of creativity.”
The new Pantone Plus Series offers a number of new features and capabilities, including the chromatic arrangement of colors, an expanded palette of spot colors, additional new metallics, and a broader range of neons. All books in the Plus Series are printed on text-weight paper.
benstarr
Well-known member
The colors you are looking at are Pantone Coated v4, which is the next edition after Pantone+ v3. They added the Plus to the name in in 2010 and removed it in 2019. With each new edition of the library some colors get tweaked slightly.
The colors you are looking at in the example are the same Pantone color from different versions of the guide. If the values are different it means that for what ever reason Pantone has decided that the values needed to be updated. This also means you need to know what version of the guide your client is using. And as with any colors from bridge, ask yourself are these CMYK values relevant to my press condition...but that is a whole other thing that I won't get into now.
The colors you are looking at in the example are the same Pantone color from different versions of the guide. If the values are different it means that for what ever reason Pantone has decided that the values needed to be updated. This also means you need to know what version of the guide your client is using. And as with any colors from bridge, ask yourself are these CMYK values relevant to my press condition...but that is a whole other thing that I won't get into now.
benstarr
Well-known member
The newer values can be added through the Pantone Connect Extension, or the deprecated Pantone Color Manager. I an not positive but I think the ones that Adobe includes are Pantone Plus v2.
Sadly, Pantone has announced the discontinuation of deck updates for Pantone Color Manager:
"However, please be advised that Pantone Color Manager Software is being phased out in favor of new, more powerful color management tools. Pantone will discontinue all sales of Pantone Color Manager Software by the end of 2021 and new colors have not been added to its libraries since the end of 2020. Pantone will cease its limited technical support of this product by the end of 2022.
Instead, Pantone is proud to offer the incredible power, functionality, and convenience of Pantone Connect, a Cloud-based service featuring all the Pantone colors found in all our digital libraries. Built for web, mobile and Adobe® Creative Cloud®, Pantone Connect does everything that Pantone Color Manager Software once did and so much more! For more information about Pantone Connect, CLICK HERE."
Pantone Connect is a monthly rent extortion service which doesn't to the best of my awareness support batch download of LAB data from various Pantone decks.
LAB data for Pantone swatches is the next best thing to actual spectral data, and it seems that is going to be harder to get- especially for those of us who do not choose to use Adobe Creative Cloud,
such as users of Affinity Suite, Scribus, or Inkscape.
"However, please be advised that Pantone Color Manager Software is being phased out in favor of new, more powerful color management tools. Pantone will discontinue all sales of Pantone Color Manager Software by the end of 2021 and new colors have not been added to its libraries since the end of 2020. Pantone will cease its limited technical support of this product by the end of 2022.
Instead, Pantone is proud to offer the incredible power, functionality, and convenience of Pantone Connect, a Cloud-based service featuring all the Pantone colors found in all our digital libraries. Built for web, mobile and Adobe® Creative Cloud®, Pantone Connect does everything that Pantone Color Manager Software once did and so much more! For more information about Pantone Connect, CLICK HERE."
Pantone Connect is a monthly rent extortion service which doesn't to the best of my awareness support batch download of LAB data from various Pantone decks.
LAB data for Pantone swatches is the next best thing to actual spectral data, and it seems that is going to be harder to get- especially for those of us who do not choose to use Adobe Creative Cloud,
such as users of Affinity Suite, Scribus, or Inkscape.
chriscozi
Well-known member
This.
Right here.
Read as "We only want your money. We do not care about your circumstances, your needs, or your customers."
- We only want your money - Just try to contact us about the service on "the web". Good luck resolving any issues YOU have that we create.
- We do not care about your circumstances - Our older un-upgradeable hardware/software is incompatible with your new web version.
- Or your customers - You have a problem your customers created with our new "web" service? Too bad, one size fits all.
The only solution I see is a legal one.
The EU can't get their respective heads out of their a****s to mandate 'responsible' corporate behaviour.
The US has so much money spent to buy the congress critters ain't nothin ever gonna change for the 'users' - just see 'right to repair'.
Be advised - I will NOT purchase their product if there is ANY other option. Eventually I will capitulate but maybe I'll retire instead and the millenials can have it all.
Sigh.
Rant over.
Some added information- Pantone has a variety of cloud-hobbled offerings to give access to the
various fan decks. Could anyone tell me which of Pantone Connect, Pantone Live Design, or
Pantone Live Production is able to provide batch download of multiple LAB numbers for
individual swatches?
various fan decks. Could anyone tell me which of Pantone Connect, Pantone Live Design, or
Pantone Live Production is able to provide batch download of multiple LAB numbers for
individual swatches?
PricelineNegotiator
Well-known member
How much does it even cost per year? I can't find this information.
chriscozi
Well-known member
Heck they probably don't know either.
Tack that on to the rest of the clueless behaviour.
PricelineNegotiator
Well-known member
It appears to be free to download...
scotts
Well-known member
Maybe it's time all us printers move to a different spot color standard. Pantone used to be great when they had a "standard", but now that standard seems to change from year to year and sometimes inbetween. Add colors and then modify. It was pretty straight forward back in the day to setup the colors in the software, now it is an utter nightmare.
I think printers and designers/creatives would need to mutually agree on any change. Pantone is a long-established
incumbent with this- probably very difficult to change.
SZmetana
Member
PANTONE values will be different, depending on whether you are targetting M0, M1 or M2 measurement conditions. Adobe only provides ColorBridge values for one measurement condition. In the past, Adobe supplied M2 values for ColorBridge PANTONE colors, as M2 was considered the defacto standard, but with v4 PANTONE made the decision to switch to M1 as the target measurement condition, to align with the latest print standards, such as GRACoL CRPC6. That's why you see a difference in CMYK values between v3 and v4 in Illustrator and InDesign.
chriscozi
Well-known member
Good facts, thank you.
Pantone made these changes to their standard - unbeknownst to anyone 'outside' the color standard industry?
Since Pantone and Adobe are different companies you don't address the coordination (or lack) there.
We become frustrated when our seemingly consistent workflows have changes thrust upon them by software companies.
We specifically copy older Pantone libraries to new systems BECAUSE we want to maintain consistency with older output.
Try explaining to your customer of a decade+ how their logo colors changed - only when output on a new device or maybe only on their new computer.
Maybe all we have to do is wait a few years for the standards to 'stabilize'.
Seems to me that the science of light (physics) is pretty much immutable.
Can we hold out that hope, or is Pantone going to continue to make changes?
If I'm being properly cynical changes from Pantone will continue - for the revenue stream - regardless of benefit.
Last edited:
SMS
Active member
Printers, Brand Owners and Designers alike should for sure consider switching to using the very simple to use and built to modern standards Spot Matching System, currently consisting of a total of 2.607 colour shades that are suited for CMYK printing on coated AND uncoated paper, for online viewing (sRGB) and for Television (Rec. 0709). Printers simply have to be able to print according to ISO 12647 to be able to print SMS colours (either Fogra or GRACoL/G7) and Designers can buy the sRGB colours of SMS for a one time payment of EUR 60 pr. palette (3 palettes in total - the Standard palette, the ECO palette and the MAX palette are available - each consisting of 869 colours).
Brand owners have the option of subscribing to SMS, which costs each brand owner EUR 500 pr. year, while their designers don't have to pay anything (and they get all the SMS sRGB palettes for free along with the CMYK variations of the brand colours depending on the print standard of their printer).
More information about the Spot Matching System is to be found at www.spotmatchingsystem.com.
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