pantone colors

[slappy]

okay,
i'm getting more into digital print and have had one set of business cards come back to me purple instead of blue.

since i'm getting more into printing banners, business cards, vinyl and on coro, i thought it would be time to invest into a pantone color book so this doesn't happen again.

any suggestions on which one to get for the things i'm going to be using it for.

i'd like to also be able to match up a vehicle color too if needed (like the background of a magnet to blend into the paint of a vehicle (which i understand is dupont, but to print something close to the vehicles color.

any suggestions

 

[gabagoo]

a bridge pantone book is pretty good as it will show you the cmyk equiviallant of the pms colour that was chosen. In many cases they are not even close.

 

[slappy]

your speaking foreign to me. lol.

i'm new to the terms i suppose to
pms colors? please explain that one

 

[Mosh]

PMS, Pantone Matching System

 

[gabagoo]

pms = Pantone matching system

Some pantone books break down the ink composition of how to make the colour..The bridge chart shows you for example 2 columns of every colour... The ink version mix (the actual colour) and the cmyk version side by side. Like I said some are close but most are so way off you need to match colours by printing your own charts, if digitally printing in house.

 

[signswi]

http://www.pantone.com/pages/products/product.aspx?pid=1000&ca=1&s=0

This is the one you'll get the most mileage out of. I'm a fan of buying the entire Pantone library but really the Bridge is the most important book for a sign shop.

 

[Terremoto]

a bridge pantone book is pretty good as it will show you the cmyk equiviallant of the pms colour that was chosen. In many cases they are not even close.

Whose CMYK inkset? Everybody has a different formula as CMYK isn't any type of standard.

Thing to do is properly linearize your digital printer, or hire someone to do it, and then do all your design work in RGB. Your RIP will handle the conversion from RGB to CMYK.

If you're sending your artwork to be printed and the workflow uses offset printing technology then that's something different entirely. Best bet would be to design using PMS colours and let your third party printer deal with the file how ever they see fit.

Dan

 

[gabagoo]

Whose CMYK inkset? Everybody has a different formula as CMYK isn't any type of standard.

Thing to do is properly linearize your digital printer, or hire someone to do it, and then do all your design work in RGB. Your RIP will handle the conversion from RGB to CMYK.

If you're sending your artwork to be printed and the workflow uses offset printing technology then that's something different entirely. Best bet would be to design using PMS colours and let your third party printer deal with the file how ever they see fit.

Dan

I think your right on there....

I have always noticed if i set up simplistic signage in Signlab and export to Flexi and go straight to print, the colours are pretty much as i expect. it's those pesky illustrator files sent to me that need adjusting....

 

[SightLine]

I'm guessing you are having the cards outsourced. Blues are one of the toughest in that respect since CMYK that those printers use generally cannot reproduce blues like you can on an inkjet. We work on house almost exclusivley in Adobe RGB mode (CMYK is so limiting and dull) but if we are sending something out like business cards we convert the file to US Web Coated SWOP CMYK ourselves so we can better guage what to expect from an offset press and make adjustments to the CMYK file beforehand. Rich blues almost always turn quite purple when converted to CMYK and we just make adjustments to get the limited gamut of the CMYK file as close as possible. On blues we still always add a little extra cyan and drop magenta back a little even beyond what it looks like on screen.

It's just that CMYK has a very limited gamut compared to Pantone Solids or RGB specified colors. Many are simply not possible and you as mentioned you just have to get as close as possible using tools like Pantone Bridge and software adjustments.

 

[bob]

Create it using RGB and send RGB to whomever is going to print it. If they whine, tell them to deal with it or find another printer.

I've been sending 300ppi RGB jpg files to printers for years and what I get back is pretty much what I sent them. A RIP, most any RIP, can deal with RGB far better than most any other software you might have.

If you send CMYK what you'll get back more often than not is a washed out color-shifted version of what you sent.

 

[Replicator]

You must have all of them, because coated and uncoated media are WAY DIFFERENT in their printed results, and you will use all of them . . .

 

[Robert Boyd]

Say I am working in Coreldraw working with RGB color space, what pallette do you use? Do you just mix colors on the screen. If you receive a file that is set up in CMYK or pantone assigned colors do you convert them to RGB before printing

 

[bob]

Say I am working in Coreldraw working with RGB color space, what pallette do you use?...

I use both the default Corel palette and the Pantone Coated palette.

...Do you just mix colors on the screen....

Seldom, if ever. If I can't find something suitable between the two palettes I use, I'll just make an arbitrarily decision and declare something suitable

...If you receive a file that is set up in CMYK or pantone assigned colors do you convert them to RGB before printing

Open it up and see what it looks like. See if you can use it, or tweak it if necessary. If it's unusable then send it back and tell them you deal in RGB. Never forget that what appears on you monitor is, by definition, RGB. Always and forever or at least until the laws of physics are repealed.