Pantone colours wrong in Extreme Pro

[Charles Moir]

Come to think of it, those CMYK values you suggest sound very unlikely to be right. A CMYK value of 100, 25, 18, 72 is 100% cyan, nearly 75% black - that in itself would be almost solid black. Add in 25% magenta and 18% yellow and you have a very dark colour indeed.

And to prove the point go into an Adobe app such as Photoshop or Illustrator and draw a rectangle with those CMYK values, and you'll get nothing remotely like that color you show - you'll get a dark near black, exactly as you do in Xara. So without having looked into this any further I'd say those CMYK values do not look correct.

[warwick]

Hi Charles,

Thanks for your feedback. From what you say there may be two issues then -

1. Why do the CMYK values shown on the Color Bridge guide differ from the ones in Xara's licence file. (Plus they do differ quite a bit, not just a few percentage points)

2. For the colour I am struggling with, 3035, the Pantone Color Bridge has the 'Solid' and 'CMYK' colours side by side. Their CMYK hard-copy is very close to the real 'solid' colour

In contrast the CMYK value used by Xara (whether or not it turns out to be correct) shows on-screen and printed as quite a different colour to the CMYK colour on the Pantone swatch - you have much more green. (However using the hex colour values gives a close match, so the hex and RGB colors work fine).

More information:

The following is extracted from the Color Bridge instructions. It seems to me that they are definitely saying that the CMYK values they show are the actual ones they have used for the colours printed on the 'CMYK' column. Then if you find that colour doesn't closely enough match the Solid colour shown alongside then the you should consider using a solid/spot colour instead.

That lines up with what you are saying about difference between solid (ink) colours and CMYK approximations to those colours. But does not explain why we have the differences in values for the same colour.

The words -

"Using this Guide

Comparing Solid PANTONE Colors to their Process Matches

Use this guide to determine when it may be possible to adequately reproduce a solid PANTONE color in CMYK.

Referencing the guide, locate the desired PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM Color and compare it to its match printed in CMYK. If the CMYK match is not visually acceptable, the color should remain specified as a solid. When the CMYK match appears adequate, it can be created by entering the screen tint percenatges into the CMYK color picker in your software application. To assist you, support files are available at www.pantone.com

(... more, not relevant, then ...)

Matching Solid Pantone Colours in RGB and HTML

The PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM Colors contained within this guide provide data for creating them in sRGB and HTML. sRGB is calibrated RGB optimized for the vast majority of computer monitors, operating systems and browsers and is the default color space for the World Wide Web. This allows color to be reproduced and displayed in a single, unified method that provides for viewing consistency from monitor to monitor without modification."


As far as my own project which triggered all this, I will use RGB on-screen and then tell the printer what Pantone colors to use (it is signage - hence the importance of getting the colours right - but with only a few colours).

By the way, unfortunately I don't have Photoshop or similar to do any more side-by-side research.

[warwick]

More research shows the answer.

I ended up searching Pantone's own knowledgebase and presto!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"In the summer of 2000, Pantone introduced updates to the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM, including the introduction of 147 'designer-inspired' PANTONE Colors (PANTONE 7401 through PANTONE 7547), as well as the reintroduction of a guide and chips book on matte coated paper. We also introduced an update to the PANTONE solid to process guide coated, with revised CMYK simulation values. Subsequent to this update, we also streamlined the digital identifications of PANTONE Colors as used in licensed software, to make them consistent with the printed PANTONE Guides and chips books. The following designations were adopted at that time:

C = coated paper, i.e., PANTONE 185 C
U = uncoated paper, i.e., PANTONE 185 U
M = matte coated paper, i.e., PANTONE 185 M
PC = process simulation, coated paper (PANTONE solid to process library only), i.e., PANTONE 185 PC

The above designations are currently used in the following application programs:

Adobe Photoshop 7, CS, CS2
Adobe Illustrator 10.0.3, CS, CS2
QuarkXPress 5 and later
CorelDRAW 11 and later

Earlier versions may use different designations for the PANTONE Colors and will likely contain older PANTONE Libraries with different CMYK simulation values.

In April of 2005, the PANTONE solid to process guide coated was replaced with PANTONE color bridge coated. This updated product is produced with a full digital CTP workflow, whereby ICC profile-based conversion was used to arrive at the base CMYK data, with visual tweaking afterward to produce the most accurate simulations possible for the solid PANTONE Colors. As a consequence of this, the CMYK simulation values used in PANTONE color bridge coated are revised as well.

The designations for PANTONE Colors used in PANTONE color bridge are as follows:

PC = process simulation, coated paper, i.e., PANTONE 185 PC. Used in PANTONE color bridge coated (North American version)

EC - Euro process simulation, coated paper, i.e., PANTONE 185 EC. Used in PANTONE color bridge coated Euro (European version).

In an attempt to assist users in utilizing the revised values, the PANTONE color bridge installer is offered as a free download. Please register and/or login at myPANTONE to access the download."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Does this mean that Xara are still using the old colours, not the new ones?

[sallybode]

I can create spot colors and make them as close as my equivalent charts can get me in CMYK but there are limits to how Xara handles spot color right now. Solids are rendered correctly but I am still learning how to accomplish percentages of spot color. The most accurate is to design in grayscale as use a coloring layer so I can see the color I am using.

Tinting a halftone of course makes it pretty on screen but does not do what you would want in a color separation. And duotones are something at this point as I can see, beyond what I can be sure will print.

Doing more business cards now in Xara, four color process ones. The multipage is indeed useful.

Still, for the money you spend on Xara, it give you definitely back the value you have paid and much more.

[Charles Moir]

but I am still learning how to accomplish percentages of spot color.

Create a new color that is a Tint of the spot color - that will be a true percentage of the spot color and will separate only on the spot color plate.

So the original problem looks as if Pantone have changed their CMYK values for certain Pantone colors - which is not just bizarre, but positively unhelpful and sort of undermines the point of Pantone in my view. So all those old Pantone color swathes that lots of customers will have are now worthless. Well it's a good way of selling more color swatches I guess. Our data files pre-date the April 05 update and are the same ones we shipped with Xara X1. So we'll contact Pantone and try and find out what's what.

Still that doesn't explain how on earth that CMYK value of 10,25,18,72 could print as anything other than black - because as you can tell from the values, and as Xara shows and as Adobe software shows it IS black (as near as).

Still the Process color guides are the ones that, hopefully, can be trusted.

[Soquili]

For anyone interested, you can download the Pantone Color Bridge digital files for free by signing up on the myPantone site. Registration is free.

http://www.pantone.com/pages/myPantone/myPantone.aspx

The installer includes palettes for the following applications.

We have created color palettes for:

• Adobe® Illustrator® CS2, CS, 10 & 9
• Adobe Photoshop® CS2, CS, 7 & 6
• Adobe InDesign® CS2, CS & 2.0
• Macromedia FreeHand® MX & 10
• CorelDRAW® X3, 12, 11 & 10 and Corel® Designer® 12 & 10
• QuarkXpress® 7, 6 & 5

Charles is correct about those CMYK values creating an almost black colour.

[Wizzard]

Where on the site did you down load from (I'm in the UK) I've created and account on panton.co.uk and what was the download called
thanks

[Soquili]

Hello Wizzard, I like your use of the Merlin Agent character as your avatar

The site is myPantone. Once you sign into your account you select the Support Files + Fun Tools then the link to COLOR BRIDGE™ digital libraries & tutorial. The page that opens has links to download the libraries for Windows and for Mac.

The download filename for Windows is PANTONEcolorbridge.zip

I was able to log into my account by going to the pantone.co.uk site, so getting to the file for download should work the same for you as I described above.

[Wizzard]

Thanks Soquili I've got that, as for Merlin I think I get him from some Microsoft thing in win98se

[Soquili]

You are very welcome Wizzard. Merlin is still very much alive, he is the default Agent installed on Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.