Topic awaiting preservation: Pantone Formula Guide (printer edition)

I am using this for the first time. I looked for a refernce guide- but no luck. How do I read the color info? For example:

PANTONE 203 C 1 3/4 pts PANTONE Rub. Red 5.5
1/4 pt PANTONE Yellow .8
30 pts PANTONE Trans. Wt . 93.7

Looks like 93.7, .8, and 5.5 are % adding up to 100%. Simple enough. What about the "pts"?

Thanks.
CRO8

They are mixing values for volumes of ink (using the basic Pantone color inks. There are two formulas (parts) and (percentages).

parts is listed for use in mixing with a triple-beam balance and percentages for digital scales.

Pantone - 203c

1 & 3/4 parts, Pantone Rub. Red
1/4 Parts, Pantone Yellow
30 Parts ,Trans.Wt. "This is Transparent White, it is one of many base inks used in the mixing process."

C stands for coated stock, U is for uncoated stock,

Here is a size explaning the process.
http://www.qtechproducts.com/Instructions/Operation/Oper_-_HC_HD/Mix_In k_HD_or_HC/mix_ink_hd_or_hc.html

jstuartj

[This message has been edited by jstuartj (edited 10-22-2002).]

[This message has been edited by jstuartj (edited 10-22-2002).]

thanks.

another question regarding pantone:

is every pantone color 100% convertable to a RGB or Hex color for the web?

or could it get different on different monitor-settings and color-profile?

I couldn't tell you if every color is createable in RGB, I would guess the majority of them are, with the exclusion of metalics and pearlessence ink sets.

I just found an article that states only 55% reproduceable using CYMK, you can get close on most mixes, greens seem to give me the most problems. I find 55% hard to believe I would think about 75% but here is the article:
http://graphics.tech.uh.edu/Image%20II/6degrees.pdf

Never heard of HEX color for the web? Do you mean Hexachrome for web or offset press (ie. CYMKOG) or HEX as in #001122, defining RGB in HEX.

I have only used Hexachrome once so realy couldn't tell you from experance about Pantone matching. I wouldn't be cost effective using HexaChrome to match 1 or 2 pantone shades, as you could simply run a 6 color job with the actual Pantone inks. For photographs and such Hexchrome does a very nice job but, it requires much though before hand. I didn't find it cost effective for the average image and print job.

The article linked above, states that Hexachrome exceeds RGB spectrum in all but green, and produces 90% of Pantone spot colors as compared to the 55% of matches from conventionl CMYK process.

Well profiles will effect everything you see on screen as will monitor setting.

Go to Pantones site, they have guide book listing RGB for sale, I don't know what good they are? But they are there, my guess the sink with there color cal software. Looks like a waste of money to me.


jstuartj

jstuartj - you are a veritable *wealth* if information.
:-)
One point: don't confuse hexadecimal (base 16 I think) with hexachrome (6 colors of inks instead of 4) - apples & oranges. For the web, hexadecimal is how we spec rgb values, commonly with the letters "c" and "f" standing in for numeric values above 9. For instance, white is "#ffffff": 256 red + 256 green + 256 blue, in base 16.

Can most Pantone colors be specced in hex? Amazingly, there *are* some CMYK values that can not be accurately reproduced in RGB. Pure Cyan and Yellow for instance. Howver, the majority of CMYK falls within the RGB gamut, so in fact most Pantone colors (aside from the mentioned metallic and pearlescent) can be matched -- in theory. In practice, since we have no freaking idea what the state of our viewer's monitor is, all bets are pretty much off, prettymuch all the time.
Fooey.
;-)