Spot conversion to CMYK

[scottrsimons]

Thanks to Joe posting the Pantone Color Finder, which I really am happy about. But now I'm playing around a bit with it, and I'm finding from differences in our systems.    Which leads me to my question:

How is everyone converting spot colors to CMYK?

For us, it varies on the job and customer. Quick and dirty vs finicky. Could be switched in Indesign (either by default or we create a new color from Pantone ColorBridge book) or in Prinergy via the software automatically.

I just did some testing...wrote numbers down from Joe's link (thanks again), Pantone ColorBridge, Indesign (which is supposed to be using Adobe Color Engine), and then Prinergy (Pantone Lab then CMYK) & (Pantone ColorBridge then CMYK) which is using the Adobe RIP Engine. And I am getting mixed results. Web link, ColorBridge book, and Prinergy (ColorBridge then CMYK) all match. The others do not. And seems weird that Indesign and Prinergy (Pantone Lab then CMYK) do not match, seeing that they are both based on Adobe tech.

I guess, just another reason to always be checking your system. 

[Joe]

Yeah it is mess. Just be careful. We pretty much let Prinergy convert everything and live with the results. If customers don't like it we tell them to convert before sending it to us so they get the results they want.

[Tracy]

I'm finding it to be a challenge on some jobs too
Lab Spot, CMYK spot, I had a cmyk spot job turn to lab spot when outputting as cmyk in indy
the swatch came in as lab spot but in pitstop it said cmyk spot
what the heck?

"spot" color me confused :laugh:

[scottrsimons]

Don't forget customers sending in Coated spot and Uncoated spot in the same file, on top of the Lab and CMYK. Which we have to fix to actually match the paper for our offset paper because of the automation on the presses. Not like the old days of, just make it 287 blue and you didn't have to worry about coated vs uncoated.

[Joe]

Pitstop 2018 has some handy actions to combine those kinds of spots into a single spot color.

[mc hristel]

Using Prinergy here too. We had up until fairly recently been using a look up table for converting spots. This was an old table from before Adobe changed to using Lab for spots so some colors were fairly far off after conversion.  Now we have it set to pull/honor the numbers built into the file, with the lookup table as a fall back. Also in the lookup table we have standard spots like die line, gloss and dull varnish, etc. defined so that these get handled exactly the same for each job.

[seratne]

If converting from LAB spot to CMYK double check your output profile. As that will cause different cmyk results depending on which one you choose.

Conversion of 286 C:
US Web - C100 M83 Y12 K4
Gracol 06 - C100 M80 Y13 K1
Gracol 13 - C100 M79 Y0 K13

Unless I know I need to match a spot color in process, I always like to honor the application values if a spot has a CMYK definition. Cuz you know, lazy designers will modify values of a color but not rename it.

[DigiCorn]

I use the Pantone website to get my CMYK values for Pantone colors, but now they hid it really well.

[scottrsimons]

Well, after doing some more digging, I have found some info. Not sure if it is true, but is sounds about right. Here's a quote from another forum: "Pantone does alter the CIE L*a*b* values it licenses to third parties as time goes by. The third parties may or may not be up to date with implementing the different versions of Pantone's libraries, nor do they necessarily ensure that the libraries used in individual vendor's applications are the same."

So I dug around Pantone's site a bit and found that they offer some software that ties into Adobe, Corel or QuarkXPress design programs and that will give you the correct CMYK break downs of the Pantone colors for the small price of $99 or free with the registration of a qualified product.

So between fixing our Prinergy queues and possibly buying this software instead of always looking at the Color Bridge book, I might have found our solution.

[Tracy]

So now when we convert to process CALL SCOTT :laugh:

[Joe]

So now when we convert to process CALL SCOTT :laugh:

SCOTT...THE PANTONE KING!!!!

[abc]

Ok so here's the thing.
How can you have one set of CMYK values for a spot color for all printing processes and substrates?

Of course you can't, not if you expect the color to look the same in all conditions.

That's the thinking behind the Pantone colors being built in Lab.
You convert them to CMYK using the appropriated color management settings and get the best match.

Logical, but confusing if you are trying to match a job you previously printed using a CMYK version of the Pantone.
That's why we offer both variants in PitStop, and as Joe said we added a lot of functionality in the last version to enable you to standardise on either Lab or CMYK Pantone variants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI5Wb5NqLpo&t=16s

[Tracy]

What would be the appropriate management settings when converting using the LAB SPOT?

[Joe]

I think the only real solution is to manually type in the new CMYK values if you are trying to match the old Pantone conversion from a previous job.

[abc]

Just seen this on Linkedin which seems relevant to this thread.
https://www.insights4print.ceo/2018/11/your-color-guide-and-you-first-results/