Advice on converting spot colour to process colours.

[Ronnie_Space]

Hello

New to this forum, hope I am in the right place.

Am a product designer and getting involved with some graphic design, and concious about giving the printers good information.

Do not have a colour bridge swatch set and looking to convert solid coated spot colour to process CMYK.

For PANTONE 288C

Using the pantone iphone app gives me: CMYK 100 80 6 32

If I use photoshop and choose PANTONE 288C using the solid coated colour library I get a CMYK of 100 86 26 20

Which is correct? Or should I be using another method.

Any advice much appreciated.

Ronnie

 

[Greg_Firestone]

Hi Ronnie,

I would trust the Pantone App. The variations you see in Photoshop are based on your working CMYK colorspace. Photoshop will display LAB values by the swatch. Those must be converted to CMYK for you to use them. The colorspace effects the LAB to CMYK conversion.

What is your reason for Pantone 288C? Was it required by your company because of a logo, etc. or is just an artistic choice. The reason I ask is that Pantone 288C might be a tough color to reproduce using CMYK inks. Not all Spot colors easily convert to CMYK.

Is the job only a 4-color job? If so, you might be better off specifying a 4-color build of your own versus trying to use a Spot. If you have more info about the job, we can maybe provide more ideas.

Greg

 

[niklaus]

Hi!


Have you considered using the Pantone Plus Digital Libraries for Adobe? These are free installers that will allow you to integrate pantone plus libraries on the Adobe suite.

This installer includes the following libraries:

• PANTONE+ Solid Coated
• PANTONE+ Solid Uncoated
• PANTONE+ Color Bridge Coated
• PANTONE+ Color Bridge Uncoated
• PANTONE+ Premium Metallics Coated
• PANTONE+ Pastels & Neons Coated
• PANTONE+ Pastels & Neons Uncoated
• PANTONE+ CMYK Coated
• PANTONE+ CMYK Uncoated

 

[knl]

simple , if it's a corporate logo or that colour is meant to be exclusive , make it 4+1

 

[MacHenry1]

When you switch a publication to process color, some RGB colors, including some of Publisher's standard colors, fall outside the CMYK gamut. In this case, you can converts the color to the closest printable CMYK color and displays the converted color on the screen.

 

[mtlprint]

Try

For me converting RGB to CMYK in Photoshop through Lab color space always gives best results.

 

[Michael4]

Also, on a more important side note - You won't be hitting 288C very well from any CMYK build. It's sure to print rather purple. This particular swatch is just out of Gracol7 CMYK gamut.

It's better to have your printer use the appropriate ink (Knl's advice for 4 +1 , or 4 color process + one spot color)

 

[Dano.61]

It's better to let your printer decide the 4-color process mix as they will determine the proper recipe for the type of printer they are using. They will create Device Dependent color. Don't forget, the Pantone-to-Process will give you a CMYK build. There are printers out there that are laying colors down in different orders and thus create different colors, depending on what color is on top. Give the printer the PMS color you want to let them convert it.

 

[Travis Young]

Leave it up to the printer. If you start specifying values and they use those values then it's your problem. If you tell them it needs to look like 288 it's thier problem.
A lot of PMS colours reproduce poorly in CMYK. If it's really crucial, find a printer with a 5 or 6 colour press and pay the extra to have the pantone colour put on the extra unit.

 

[taipeiprinter]

Firstly, you need to know that there a good proportion of Pantone colors that can't be matched well with CMYK process printing, regardless of how you convert the PMS number to CMYK values. CMYK can give good approximations for some Pantone numbers and way off for others. PMS 288 is actually a good match. On the other hand, a lot of the CMYK oranges are a lot less vibrant than the PMS equivalents.

As to the best method to obtain the closest CMYK values, nothing beats physically matching the Pantone book swatch to the swatches in a printed CMYK color chartbook. Failing that, I'd ask your printer to choose for you.