Pantone colours wrong in Extreme Pro

[warwick]

I have just started using Pantone colors directly in XXP, from the Color Gallery.

However some colours don't show the correct colour on the screen, nor when printing.

How do I know? I also have a hard copy Pantone chart and a PDF file with the same colours. The chart, the on-screen colour and a printout of same all match up. But not the Xara colour gallery one of exactly the same name.

What is going on?

* I have attached the actual Xara file with two example colours - 3025 and 3035. As you can see they are decidely different between Xara and the 'real' Pantone colour. 3035 is even shown as green in Xara, not dark blue.

* Have played with RGB, CMYK spaces but that doesn't solve it. Nor does showing printer simulation colours rather than screen colours.


Can anyone help???

[minimiro]

I dont know what Pantone chard you use
but see what say some of my Pantone libraries (PDF fails)

I dont think that XXP is in some mistake here.....

[gwpriester]

Hello Warwinck and welcome to the Xtreme conference.

Pantone spot colors were designed as specially mixed printing inks. The idea behind the Pantone Matching System was to create an ink mixing formula that any printer in the world could follow to match the colors in the Pantone color swatch and fan books. In the beginning Pantone inks were used primarily for 1, 2 and 3 color printing. Printing in CMYK was too expensive for most printing jobs.

Pantone spot colors were never intended to be matched in CMYK but as time went on, printers would be asked to try to match certain Pantone spot color using combinations of CMYK and eventurally Pantone created formulars for matching spot colors in 4 color process (CMYK).

In reality, only about 50% on Pantone spot colors can be matched exactly in CMYK. 25% come close but are not exact matchs. And the remaining 25% can never be matched and don't even come close.

OK The reason for this is CMYK printing is only capable of creating a certain amount of colors. This is called a gamut. And 25% of the Pantone colors (which are specially mixed solid colors) are simple out of the CMYK gamut.

Similarly, RGB color space has a much wider gamut than CMYK. There are many RGB colors that are well out of the gamut of CMYK. You can see this when you switch to Simulate Printer Colors mode (Window > Show Printer Colors > Simulate Print Colors). Greens and blues and purples change dramatically. And all RGB colors become more muted in Simulate Print Colors.

Finally, and I did not intend this to be a lecture, but the question comes up frequently, viewing Pantone spot colors on screen in Simulate Print Colors mode will give you a slightly more accurate way to view these colors. But the only way to really know how these colors are going to print in the real world is to proof them on an accurate color printer.

I hope this answers some of your question.

Gary

[Doug]

Gary,

Does Xara have an easy to find FAQ? As these questions about screen vs print colours come up regularly, your explanation would be very helpful in such an FAQ. Same goes for other FAQ's.

Cherry Mishmash,

Doug

[Albacore]

What a negative approach to 2 helpful answers. Most folk know that there can be a huge difference between what your monitor shows and what gets printed and I am talking about RGB and not including CMYK. Why do you think that there are such a wide difference in monitor prices (why do people spend up to 5 times the price) and why do you think that companies can charge from £300 to over £600 for a machine and software that calibrates your monitor so that you can see correct RGB colours.

[warwick]

Thanks for your inputs guys.

However I still believe that there is a problem and that some of the Xara Pantone colours are not correct.

Lets take an example of Pantone 3035. This is a dark blue with a little green in it.

As the reference I am using the 'Pantone Colour Bridge Coated' publication from Pantone Inc (2005) which has spot colours alongside their CMYK approximation. The key thing is that they also give the RGB & Hex values, along with the CMYK approximation.

The issue is that the XARA values (and colours) are substantially different to the Pantone official ones.

You can follow me with this. The colour we are talking about is 3035, which is Hex 004153 (or RGB 0, 65, 83 using x/256 not percentage).

Pantone give a matching CMYK value for this of 100, 25, 18,72

However on the XARA colour gallery (Pantone) the same 3035 is listed as CMYK 100, 0, 5, 72 - quite a different colour. Irrespective of whether we are talkng about on-screen or printed it is a DIFFERENT COLOUR.

There was a suggestion to use 'simulate print colours' in Xara - that really doesn't improve it.

(By the way the RGB value on my screen in Xara almost exactly matches the hard-copy on the Pantone chart itself, so that isn't the problem.

Over to you....

[minimiro]

I dont know what Pantone chard you use
but see what say some of my Pantone libraries (PDF fails)

I dont think that XXP is in some mistake here.....

did you see the attachment?

solid to process values from Pantone is exact the same like values in Xara

there is different ways for calculation CMYK values from Pantones
Xara uses solid to proces

[warwick]

Hi Minimoro,

Yes I did look at your attachment. As I am trying to say, the CMYK values you and Xara are using for Pantone 3035 are WRONG.

I don't know where you got that swatch of colours from, but your CMYK of 100, 0, 13, 87 for that colour is not the same as what Pantone say. The correct values are as per my previous post.

The result is that both the on-screen colour and when it is printed are WRONG.

Please grab a genuine Pantone hard-copy chart and have a look at what I am saying.

[Soquili]

Hi Warwick,

The CMYK values of 100 25 18 72 are what the Pantone Colour Bridge files I have report. Although at the bottom of every page the following is also printed:

PANTONE® Colors displayed here may not match PANTONE-identified standards. Consult current PANTONE Color Publications for accurate color.PANTONE® and other Pantone, Inc. trademarks are the property of Pantone, Inc. © Pantone, Inc., 2005. All rights Hardcopies of PANTONE Color Charts and reproductions thereof MAY NOT BE SOLD in any form.Pantone, Inc. is not responsible for any modifications made to such Charts which have not been approved by Pantone, Inc.

[Charles Moir]

Well our licensed data files, from Pantone, show Pantone 3035 as having CMYK colors of 100,0,5,72.

So I do not know what's going on here.

But I would say these are solid spot colors and not process colors. You shouldn't be using Pantone solid colors for anything other than real solid color work (i.e. to be printed as a separate spot plate and printed with that real ink). So it's conceivable (but unlikely) that Pantone simple have changed the CMYK values for their solid colors. What's for certain is that solid color CMYK values are only approximations.

If you want to use known exact Pantone colors as Process colors then you're meant to use Pantone Process color charts (coated or uncoated). And I can say, for example that a similar sort of blue/green shade on my Pantone swatch shows color 213-4 as having CMYK values 70,35,10,25 % which matches exactly the values in the Color Gallery (and if you've got a Process Color Swatch I'd hope match your values as well).

But we'll look into this to try and understand why your data is different for solid colors.