Pantone Improvements
Pantone Improvements
- Subject: Pantone Improvements
- From: Michael Kieran <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2003 12:39:37 -0500
In venting his frustrations with the difficulty of accurately
reproducing Pantone spot colors with CMYK inks (colorsync-users digest,
Vol 3 #644), DuWayne Rocus left out a few important facts.
Pre-2000 editions of the Pantone spot color guide books were printed
with analog, film-based technology, using a 150-line screen and a CMYK
ink sequence, and contain 942 colors. The 2000 guide books were printed
CTP (computer-to-plate) at a 175-line screen on a brighter paper (a #1
grade 60 lb. cover stock) with a KCMY ink sequence, and contain 1,089
colors,
The proliferation of CTP systems was a major reason for the production
of the new guide books. With pre-2000 guide books, users of CTP systems
would enter the values verbatim from the guide, and were unable to
match the colors, because the digital systems did not enter any dot
gain unless a dot gain curve was programmed in. Since the guide did
not discuss dot gain, users were unable to accurately predict how such
gain would effect the actual color, and could not make solid
adjustments for known dot gain in their systems.
With the new guide, an analog, film-based proof was created, and the
CTP system was calibrated based on that proof. Thus, a level of dot
gain was built into the process. Further, the copy pages of the guide
provide the dot gain target measurements which were achieved in the
printing of the Guide. This information is critical to users of CTP
systems, as it allows them to make any necessary adjustments to their
dot gain curve by comparing to a known quantity.
By using CTP, Pantone was able to achieve better simulations of the
Pantone spot colors, but this of course resulted in a new data set,
which has led to the difficulties in consistency between applications.
However, a number of applications now fully support the updated Pantone
solid to process values, including Photoshop 7 (in Pantone solid to
process swatch library, and color book), Illustrator 10 (with
downloadable update), QuarkXPress 5, and CorelDRAW 11.
There are support files at
http://www2.pantone.com/support/support.asp?idArticle=73 which allow
users to import the revised Pantone spot color libraries to documents
within earlier versions of the above applications, on a document basis.
The process of importing the revised libraries is fully explained in
the user guide.
Michael Kieran
Color Management Consulting
email@hidden
905-893-2274
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