Question about Pantone Colors

The thread, "Which color mode?" reminded me of an issue I have long wondered about. I rarely am required to use Pantones colors and if so it would be for simple, "pure" colored logos; most of the time I use the Pantone swatches solely to identify a set of colors I want to use in a graphic so this is probably a stupid question for the experieced graphics designer so excuse my ignorance.

If I do a blend between two objects which have Pantone Fills OR have an object with a gradient fill of a Pantone color to white, won't the resulting intermediate blended objects or intermediate colors of the gradient screw up things up for print shop?

km ;ok po'

Theoretically you can blend 2 Pantone colors. But I am not sure if Xara can do this and not create a new series of colors in the process.

To make a gradient of a Pantone color, as you suggested from white to the Pantone color you need to make a Shade of the Pantone color (see attached).

If you use White, it will be an RGB white and will defeat the point of a one color gradient. So instead of White, you would use a 0% Shade of the color. (My example shows 5.5% instead of 0%)

Gary

So the printing process understands the value of "5.5% Pantone 160 PC" (which maybe equivalent to another defined Pantone color)?

John

Yes. If you are printing with Pantone colors, the gradient is screened (converted to small halftone dots). So the 5.5% is just a fine screen of the solid color.

Gary

Thank you, Gary, for the clarification.

Regards, John