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match process color to spot 1
- Thread starter kenford
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...it is a bit hit and miss trying to match process values to a spot colour, most spot colours don't reproduce very well in CMYK. Another factor involved is that paper, varnishes and other variables can effect color...
...if you launch photoshop you can type in your cmyk values in the color picker and then choose color libraries and it will 'best guess' a spot color...
...if on mac os x, there is a great application that performs a similar function:
...if you have a printed sample of this cmyk color in question you would be better off acquiring a pantone swatch book to compare to visually. With this route, and if you don't have access to a pantone swatch book, talk to your print provider to get the closest match achievable, discuss a target color with them...
...pantone, the company, have changed their cmyk library equivalents over the years to great upset to many in the industry. For example, in Quark 6.x the pantone to process swatch is completely different to that in Quark 7.x. Many have encountered problems opening Quark 6 artwork in 7 to find that the process values change when spot colors are printed into CMYK.
...a similar problem occurs with the adobe applications using either LAB or CMYK as equivalents:
...the pantone books themselves can also look different from one another too, especially if you compare an outdated pantone book to a current one. This in itself causes headaches, for example when one printer prints P315 and another printer (two miles down the road) also prints P315 (on the same paper stock) matching to the supposedly same pantone book system. Yet side by side they look a bit different. If the inks are mixed by the same ink manufacturer this problem can be eased. In my experience many printers mix their own pantone inks as buying them in can be pricier than DIY...
...i often encounter pantone colors printed by other printers come into our work, the pantone number has been given, so you would think that looking at the pantone book would look similar, not so in reality. In these circumstances it is a case of "forget the book, match the target sample"...
Andrew
...if you launch photoshop you can type in your cmyk values in the color picker and then choose color libraries and it will 'best guess' a spot color...
...if on mac os x, there is a great application that performs a similar function:
...if you have a printed sample of this cmyk color in question you would be better off acquiring a pantone swatch book to compare to visually. With this route, and if you don't have access to a pantone swatch book, talk to your print provider to get the closest match achievable, discuss a target color with them...
...pantone, the company, have changed their cmyk library equivalents over the years to great upset to many in the industry. For example, in Quark 6.x the pantone to process swatch is completely different to that in Quark 7.x. Many have encountered problems opening Quark 6 artwork in 7 to find that the process values change when spot colors are printed into CMYK.
...a similar problem occurs with the adobe applications using either LAB or CMYK as equivalents:
...the pantone books themselves can also look different from one another too, especially if you compare an outdated pantone book to a current one. This in itself causes headaches, for example when one printer prints P315 and another printer (two miles down the road) also prints P315 (on the same paper stock) matching to the supposedly same pantone book system. Yet side by side they look a bit different. If the inks are mixed by the same ink manufacturer this problem can be eased. In my experience many printers mix their own pantone inks as buying them in can be pricier than DIY...
...i often encounter pantone colors printed by other printers come into our work, the pantone number has been given, so you would think that looking at the pantone book would look similar, not so in reality. In these circumstances it is a case of "forget the book, match the target sample"...
Andrew
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