PMS colors not matching among InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator 1

[jmgalvin]

Posted in Indesign, Illustrator, & Photoshop forums

A poster on Tek-Tips, Mac OS, asked why the PMS colors in Photoshop did not match the PMS colors in Illustrator or InDesign for OSX.

Since this interested me, I did the following – all with CS versions of the programs purchased as Creative Suite Pro.

I created an Illustrator document, drew a box, and filled it with Pantone Solid Coated 1795C, a fairly bright red.

I create a new 600 dpi CMYK Photoshop document, drew a rectangle, and filled the rectangle with Pantone Solid Coated 1795C – same as the Ill document.

I pasted both the Ill and PS items into a blank InDesign doc. The colors were not even close. The Pantone 1795C from Photoshop much darker than the Ill Pantone 1795C.
I then drew a box directly in the Indesign document and filled it with Pantone Solid Coated 1795C. That was a dead match to the Ill 1795C and WAY off form the Photoshop 1795C.

I opened Apple’s Digital Color meter and ran it over the various P1795C objects. The Ill and ID elements registered, Red at 89%, Green at 0, and Blue at 19.6%. The Photoshop element registered 80.8% red, 0% Green, and 23.9% Blue – a large difference from the ID and Ill P1795Cs.

I ran Digital Color Meter over the originals in each of the 3 CS apps and got the same result.

It appears that the Pantone colors in Photoshop are different than the other 2 CS apps. Since I generally use PS for photographic work and Ill for scratch creation of objects, I had never noticed this.

As a Workaround, I created a one color box in Ill and pasted it into an empty layer in PS in order to import the same red as Ill and ID.

Does anybody know of anything that I might have missed?

 

[jmgalvin]

Sorry -meant to post this in Illustrator forum

 

[texasjoe]

Hey, I'm glad you posted it here -- I posted a similar concern a while back.

I'm glad I'm not the only one having this problem.

I can get colors from photoshop, indesign, acrobat, etc. to match. The response I got said I don't know enough about color management. While this may be true, it still doesn't make since to me.

I mean they're all Adobe programs -- it's just one computer monitor. Shouldn't the red I see in Photoshop match the red I see when I put it in Indesign? Shouldn't that red look the same once it becomes a PDF? I think it should. Even for people with no color management skills. I think the colors should match straight out of the box.

Joe

 

[jmgalvin]

Texas Joe:

The whole idea behind the pantone matching sustem is to get consistent color results among various apps, output devices, etc. It looks like that is not the case with Photoshop vs. the other CS apps.

If you use Pantone 1795C (or others) in a PS doc, save as a tiff, place it in an ID doc, and sample the CMYK colors you get 9%C, 100%M. 96%Y. 2%K. That color is nowhere near the mix as defined in Pantone's solid to process guide.

If you use that same 1795C in ILL or ID you get a cmyk mix of 0%C, 94%M. 100%Y, 0%K. That is an exact match to the Pantone solid to process guide.

Unless I'm missing something (highly likely considering my brain power) something seems to be off.

 

[jmgalvin]

Texas Joe

Got the solution on an Adobe forum.

If you use Pantone solid colors in Indesign or Illustrator, use the Pantone Solid to Process library in Photoshop (cmyk color mode) for things you want to import into ID or ILL. The things will look the same and the cmyk values will match.

If you convert Pantone solids in ID and ILL from spot to process, as long as yu have the pantone solid to process guide, You'll be able to match things up.

 

[AShock]

Here's a fun question...does this ever cause printing problems with commercial printers?

When I export the "mismatched" PANTONES to PDF, they still look mismatched.

 

[jmgalvin]

Ashock. Yes it can. The cmyk and rgb values come out different. If you change the Pantone to a cmyk process, the PS one does not match the ILL and ID ones.

Again, If you just use Pantone Solid to Process in PS, the colors will match. Even the numbers are the same. 127 S to P would be the same as 127 S.