Pantone to CMYK matching, best solution?

[customsticker]

I get a lot of e-mails from customers asking for certain pantone colors, and I always need the cmyk equivalent to print on my Roland sc-545.

What is the best solution for to find these Pantone to CMYK equivalents, other then looking the colors up on the web - which really offers no accuracy?

Thanks!

[SignosaurusRex]

Fellers sells the new PMS books with all the equivalents.

[customsticker]

Thanks! I see it is $100 - the internet offers all of the equivs, but doesn't give me much to compare it to in terms of accuracy!

[SignosaurusRex]

Well worth the $$$

[DigitalDot]

If your roland can print a pantone sheet print one, it will have the coordinating CMYK and RGB values printed under them. Don't just check the number, do a visual match. A roland will print a pantone color differently than an HP, than a mutoh...etc. Even with perfect calibration. I use to keep two charts on the wall, one with lamination, and the other without. I would also change them a couple of times a year.
Hope this helps
Sinjin

[GVP]

This might help you:

http://www.signsnsuch.com/solid to process values.zip

[javila]

Best solution? Use color profiling software that lets you convert colors between color spaces, and lets you properly set your printing to print the correct colors.

[SignosaurusRex]

You still need the swatch book to check against, Unless you are "Visually color impaired"....oh to hell with pc,..."Color Blind"

[customsticker]

Printer has been profiled, we build all of our own profiles.

So now it's just a matter of matching them to the correct values. CMYK seems to print the best, so we use this when getting a dead on match.

[DigitalDot]

Definetly need a swatch book. If for anything to show the customer that DS 223-9 U isn't a yellow regardless of what thier last printer told them. :)

Sinjin

[Replicator]

Bought the Fellers Pantone book for $100 bones, Best investment I ever made !

PMS, CMYK, RGB, HTML, and on and on . . . You do the math !

[Westcoast Sign Guy]

you have a link for that, I need to email someone with that if you have it off hand rep

[javila]

Printer has been profiled, we build all of our own profiles.

So now it's just a matter of matching them to the correct values. CMYK seems to print the best, so we use this when getting a dead on match.

You grabbed one of the eye-one's off ebay right? It comes with Eye-One Share, that'll give you the values of any color from one space to another.

[Bob Price]

So will Photoshop

[javila]

Photoshop cannot take a sample from your physical swatch book however.

[Hellpigeon]

You can download actual color palettes for various softwares right at:

http://www.pantone.com

Register for free in myPantone and Download the adobe bridge. These color palletes are loadable in Illustrator, Corel, Quark and a host of others. These are the actual CMYK Values from Pantone itself.

However, unless you are using some type of color management system with a spectrophotometer and custom ICC and ICM creation utilities your best bet is to use these pantone palettes, print them on your printer and do visual color matching as suggested in a previous post.

[Shovelhead]

You can download actual color palettes for various softwares right at:

http://www.pantone.com

Register for free in myPantone and Download the adobe bridge. These color palletes are loadable in Illustrator, Corel, Quark and a host of others. These are the actual CMYK Values from Pantone itself.

However, unless you are using some type of color management system with a spectrophotometer and custom ICC and ICM creation utilities your best bet is to use these pantone palettes, print them on your printer and do visual color matching as suggested in a previous post.


"color bridge"

[Hellpigeon]

sorry right .. Pantone Bridge ... sorry ... I use it in Adobe and Adobe has a software named that .. little bit of a brain poof there.

[Replicator]

you have a link for that, I need to email someone with that if you have it off hand rep

No Link just : 800-654-8405 - Part #CMYK - Pantone Bridge

[Replicator]

You can download actual color palettes for various softwares right at:http://www.pantone.com

You can bet that if you download and print a Pantone color chart that it wont

be entirely accurate, thats why you should always buy the real thing . . .

Tried and true !

[Hellpigeon]

I dont disagree in any way shape or form. Thats why color management exists and spectrophotometers. (sp.)

I've been writing my own ICC profiles for over 2 years, the only color matching issues that exist here now is the lack of Gamut in a 4 or 6 color printer and the common ignorance that "offset pantone charts" should match CMYK pantone charts. They don't and they won't. Two totally different processes.

The solid to process pantone color book is the best resource for illustrating this to a potential customer.

[geedub]

finally someone knows.

CMY and Black can make plenty of colors, sure. But the fact is, they can't hit everything, there are plenty of colors that cannot actually be made with CMY and K. Some of these colors are pantone colors. You cannot actually print "metallic" colors, there are metallics in the pantone book. You also cannot actually print "flourecent" colors, also in the pantone book. There are also handfuls of reds, blues and greens that are not attainable through CMYK. Pantone colors are spot colors, Pantone samples are printed via spot colors, not process (cmyk). Lets think about it this way; Spot colors would be the equivelancy of paint. Process colors would be the equivelancy of attempting to make every color of paint Home Depot carries, using Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. It's not possible. There are spot color digital printers, but they do not support many pantone colors, I think the gerber edge supports the most with 5 or 10 or so.

So, you can get a spot to process book which will show you the representation of certain spot colors best printed in CMYK. You could show that to your clients. HOWEVER, your printer isn't going to match that book, because who knows what printer printed those and what profiles were used.

Therefore, your best bet is to print a nice big pantone chart and put it up next to your computer, make sure it's printed using the profiles you usually print with for that material. And show that to your customers, tell them, this is what your pantone will look like. If you want to be super nice, you can tweak the pantone colors yourselves in your design software to maybe get it a little closer. My favorite pantone chart is from onyx, you can very easily e-mail them and they will send it over to you free of charge. Also, since it uses the adobe illustrator color swatch pallette of PMS colors, it makes it easier to plug in colors when printing a customer file, just use that swatch.

[Rick]

The solution I have with the printers I have used is have the vendor printout the Pantone colors on the printer being used on the job, then I match it with the Pantone book I have and modify the artwork to work within the digital print process.

[geedub]

yea, if someone is printing your work for you, that will work because you can't sit there and guess and check on spot colors, or create icc profiles for them. Most of the times the printers will be close enough and the wanted pantone color will be the closest available color that pantone color, but you will get your occasional colors that look better as a different number, most of the time in yellow pms colors.

[Rick]

Whats nice about getting the designers to do it is...

Most designers who call out Pantone are probably going to be picky...

It makes them responsible...

Most Designers hate their files messed with and production guys hate to mess with them too...

It teaches the designer the limitations on PMS to CMYK and may make it easier to work with the designer on other projects...

[geedub]

In most of my personal experiences, advertising designers don't know anything about color except for which ones look pretty and which ones look pretty together, most of them don't know anything about print or digital printing, but they have good portfolios and ideas. I'd like one of those jobs I think.

[Rick]

You figure if a designer can call out varnishes, doutone metallics, binding types, folds, foils, embossing/debossing, overprints, die-cuts, paper call outs and the like, they can figure out the production issues of digital....But some can't...

[zmatalucci]

Flexi-8 calls out all pantone colors that I import. Mind you that I rip and print with production manager as well, so any pantone sh--t that comes, I don't change. If it comes out wrong, I blame it on the artist! Simple as that..

[bob]

As has been noted endlessly in the past, all you have to do is print Pantone chart on the media in question. Then when a Pantone number is specified you grab your Pantone samples, ease up to your chart and find the color on the chart that best matches the Pantone sample in your hand.

You can create your own Pantone chart or download one from numerous sources. I've a number of large Pantone charts on various banner and vinyl media festooning the walls of my shop. I refer to them every day. Not just to match a Pantone number but to select a color that will print as I want rather than appear on my monitor as I want.

On those rare occasions when a PMS number is called out I always respond that the nature of digital printing being what it is, I'll try to come as close as possible but in this sandbox there's no such thing as an exact match.

[GB2]

I'm sure that Bob has summed it up correctly however, I can't seem to locate a pantone chart that can be printed from anywhere. Does anyone have a definitive source for a printable pantone chart?

[geedub]

call onyx tech support or e-mail them, it's free, they will send it to you, it is the best one i have seen.

[javila]

http://printingdigital.net/forums/local_links.php?action=links&catid=27

[GB2]

I'll try Onyx but since I don't own any Onyx software I don't know if that will work for anyone who doesn't own it. I also tried the Pantone chart at www.printingdigital.net previously but that chart appears to have some type of corruption and I have not been able to print it successfully. I actually have been in the process of recreating the printingdigital chart but it isn't complete yet and is a time consuming task to do it manually. It would have it's advantages though when done, as I understand some of the CYMK formulas have changed slightly in Illustrator pallettes, so the new chart would have the latest.

[GB2]

No luck at the Onyx site without product ownership...unless I'm missing something. Anybody else have a good source for a printable Pantone coated CMYK chart?

[geedub]

hmm.... I wonder if they would get mad if I uploaded it then.....

They're actually pretty easy to make if you know what you're doing. just make a bunch of 1"x1" squares, click each then click the swatch, hell now that I think about it, I DON'T WANT TO DO THAT, hahaha. If I make one and upload it will you guys give me some praise?

[bob]

If you have Flexi, it will make one for you. You need to do just a bit of reasonably clever editing to tidy it up for printing...

View->Color->Open Table... select cmyk.swt <<assuming you don;t have this table open already>>

View->Create Swatch->Current Palette
In the Design Central dialog...

...Select 'cmyk.swt' in the list box
...on mine I set the box size to .6, the horizontal spacing to ,8m the vertical spacing to 1.0, and the number of boxes per row to 42.
...select Advanced->Label and set the font to Ariel Narrow and the height to 0.15.

...select the check mark on the Design Central.

The table is created. It can take a few seconds.

But the labels for each box are in the wrong position and way to verbose, so...

The entire table is one group so select it and ungroup it.

Edit->Select->Select By Attributes and check 'Text'. This selects all of the text as a block. Group this.

Edit->Select->Select By Attributes and check 'Path' and group that as well.

Select the group that is all of the text

...Text->Find/Replace enter PANTONE [that's 'PANTONE ' with a trailing space in the "Find' field and put a single space in the 'Replace With' field and invoke 'Replace All'.

...enter PC [that's ' PC' with a leading space in the 'Find' field and put a single space in the 'Replace With' field and invoke 'Replace All'.

Now zoom in on the color box on the upper left. Grab the group that is the text and position it such that the Pantone numbers are on top of and left justified on the color boxes.

Now seek out the 'warm gray', 'cool gray', and miscellaneous verbose names on the first [bottom] row and abbreviate them so they tend to fit above their respective boxes.

For added class, select the group that is all of the paths and add a thin, as in .01 outline offset out about .01-.02 This tends to give the color boxes a little contrast.

Print it.

[GB2]

Wow Bob, thank you so much for those detailed directions! Unfortunately, I do not have Flexi but I'm sure that many people will find that lesson helpful for a long time to come.

[javila]

I'll try Onyx but since I don't own any Onyx software I don't know if that will work for anyone who doesn't own it. I also tried the Pantone chart at www.printingdigital.net previously but that chart appears to have some type of corruption and I have not been able to print it successfully. I actually have been in the process of recreating the printingdigital chart but it isn't complete yet and is a time consuming task to do it manually. It would have it's advantages though when done, as I understand some of the CYMK formulas have changed slightly in Illustrator pallettes, so the new chart would have the latest.


I downloaded the file and opened it fine in CS2. I resaved it and re zipped it in eps 8 . It's about 3 megs. Give me your email, I'll send it to you if you still need it.

[petepaz]

roland has an update that you can download a swatch file of all the colors it will print with roland #'s once you get that print it out then you can add this swatch list to your graphics program and then you can use those colors in your art work now you can use the printed version to match up to the pantone colors

[KR3signguy]

The only way to do it accuratly is to adopt a color management profiling system. I suggest X-Rite. Don't rely on other profiles that were created on a different machine or a swatch booklet that will be inaccurrate. You MUST build your own. The software is quite intuitive and all well worth the investment. From then on you'll never have to reinvent the wheel & save on hundreds of house that your used to color correcting. Remember, your client wants the job yesterday & you have no time to mess around with color.
Good luck!