On Mar 7, 2016, at 12:49 PM, Todd Shirley <todds@urbanstudionyc.com> wrote:
What exactly is the difference between Pantone Process Inks (PANTONE Process Cyan, PANTONE Process Megenta, PANTONE Process Yellow, PANTONE Process Black) and "standard" CMYK process inks?
The great thing about standards is there're so many to pick from. There's nothing stopping a printer from buying "standard" CMYK inks from whatever source with whatever quality controls or specifications or what-not. Using the Pantone trademarks at least opens you up to some liability from Pantone (X-Rite) if you're not meeting their standards. The only real way to answer in a specific case would be to compare spectrometer readings from the inks in question, or to compare profiles built from the different inks. For practical porpoises, if your client's work lies within the color gamut of both, and if your entire process is well controlled and profiled, there won't be any difference. And chances are slim that there'll be anything that lies within the gamut of one CMYK inkset but outside another...and slimmer still that there's enough of a difference for it to actually matter. Anything far enough outside of a CMYK gamut (any CMYK gamut) to be a problem is going to need a different pigment entirely -- whether it be the orange or violet of large format inkjets or a spot (true Pantone) color or hexachrome something even more exotic. Cheers, b&