Pantone Nightmares
Pantone Nightmares
- Subject: Pantone Nightmares
- From: "DuWayne Rocus" <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 06:01:49 -0500
Printing accurate Pantones colors correctly is nearly impossible on any
device/rip/workflow combination. There are a couple of exceptions, but it
will cause you lots of problems in other areas. I have previous contacted
Pantone showing that its impossible in dozen different
rip/application/printer combinations -I'm still waiting for a response after
6 months after confirmed reply to my email.Pantone need to do some in depth
analysis.
Here are the reasons why it won't work, you can over come some of them but
other will get you. I'm talking about Pantone spot colors - not the process
equilivants.
1) You can never get the lab values for Pantone Spot colors without paying a
licence fee or hacking them out of another program like Profilemaker.
2) You can not trap Pantone names in a PS file becuase your lookup table
would have to have the word "Pantone" in the search string - without a
paying a license fee or you will hear from the lawyers.
3) The Pantones values/names in applications are old or corrupt depending on
application version. The odds of getting bad data to start is pretty high.
The excusse of an update to CTP & 175 lpi is a little fishy. Who use more
Panotne inks, the million speedy printers or the hundred of CTP guys? I
would love to see the math on this one - how much of a benefit is 175lpi vs
133 lpi - will the higher line screen increase gamut or fill some holes in
match colors?(Hey Bruce)
4) The Pantones Spot color values are static in applications like
illustrator. If you specify a Pantone Spot color it will have either CMYK or
RGB values attached that will be used when printing a composite. Well if you
change your documents source space the RGB or CMYK values don't change - The
data will be flawed from the start. Your rip or printer will get the wrong
data even if you are printing correctly. Since we have no idea what color
space the RGB/CMYK values are based on. And legally you can't get the lab
values to do the calculation to figure it out.
5) BestColor has one of the best options, but it requires a little
hacking/deception and has one major flaw. The only way that Bestcolor can
trap spot color names is if you print seperations.The problem with this idea
is that it assumes that you can print seperations from a given application
and that all items a seperatable.So if you have a tif in quark it must be
CMYK or DCS to seperate. If I have all ready converted it to CMYK, I'm doing
my color management in advance and a rip starts to have less value. Then why
don't I just specify all my pantones spot colors with the CMYK (multi
color)device values for each device I print to? Well you can't do it
becuase you can't get the lab values to make the calculation and you would
have to change the values of every object in a layout for each device you
print to. The problem becomes even more comples when you add in Hexachome
inks or want to use Pantone Spot colors to bump up raster images. I haven't
use BestColor in a while so -Ulf please confirm this.
It costs everyone time, money and hassles with clients. From the small
speedy printer who just wants to give a customer a proof on his desktop
inkjet for a two color print job, to the major catalog house who is forced
to do and extra print run or show his client a chip from a swatch book, and
major rip developers who just want to give customers a good product Anyone
of us can make up a bunch of colors.
Personally my money on Crayola - it worked for me as a kid, colors haven't
changed in 50 years, color samples are cheap and probably more consistent,
everyones has easy access to samples, you can put them on any stock
yourself. Just a thought.............
Soon this will change.
DuWayne Rocus
Omniscience, Inc
South Florida Roland Dealer
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