Book color vs. CMYK color (Illustrator)

[JoeBoomer]

In Illustrator, when you have double click on a spot color it gives you the following options: "Grayscale", "RGB", "HSB", "CMYK", "LAB" or "Web Safe RGB", or Book Color".


I always choose "Book Color" and let my RIP handle the CMYK breakdown vs. Adobe doing it. I will save as a PDF file typically and as long as I have the 'Output' settings set to "No Conversion" it will retain my choice in the file.

One problem I have is I need to constantly check all the spot colors in my files and the way I save them (or the client) to make sure they retain the "Book Color" setting.

Is this good, bad, ugly way of saving my print files? I'm just looking for any insight into this as I have run into issues where I forgot to check that or whatever the case may be.

Thanks Team!

 

[Zendavor Signs]

We use Onyx RIP, and for Pantone colors it does not matter how the color is set up. It looks for the Pantone name and replaces the color with info from a table. Your RIP may work differently. Using book color is good practice, as that will look most accurately on screen.

 

[JoeBoomer]

We use Onyx RIP, and for Pantone colors it does not matter how the color is set up. It looks for the Pantone name and replaces the color with info from a table. Your RIP may work differently. Using book color is good practice, as that will look most accurately on screen.

I use Onyx RIP as well, but I have the 'Color Replacement Table' off.

 

[SightLine]

As far as I know its always a good idea to let a RIP interpret Pantone colors. I guess it depends on the RIP though but I think most RIP software has Pantone lookup tables built in and are optimized to correctly produce Pantone colors. Also many RIP's out there are using APPE (Adobe PDF Print Engine) behind the scenes as the actual RIP. In that scenario - it does not matter if you let the RIP do the conversion or Illustrator - its Adobe doing it regardless. I know the Flexi above 10.5 uses APPE (prior versions used APSI - Adobe Post Script Interpreter which is Adobe's older RIP engine).

Regardless - at least with Flexi we always use Pantone colors when possible, if not we use RGB which has a far greater gamut than CMYK. Of the actual values when clicking a Pantone - the most current standard is Lab which is the most accurate method of defining a color. Starting with CS6, Adobe products use the newer Pantone Plus which defaults to Lab instead of CMYK. CMYK is still the standard for offset and traditional print though. It's just a very dull limited gamut compared to RBG (specifically we use Adobe RGB color profiles for almost everything). While counterintuitive since you printer has CMYK inks, your printers CMYK inks have a far greater color gamut than CMYK files do. Working strictly in CMYK rather severely limits the color range your printer is capable of.