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Adobe no longer licenses Pantone colors to be used freely Photoshop

arstechnica.com

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Re: Adobe no longer licenses Pantone colors to be used freely Photoshop

#41

Post by WillAdams »

Most folks who used PANTONE spot colours had no business doing so --- their gaudy layout w/ a dozen spot colours would never be printed w/ that many plates, and some production person always had to get permission to convert them into the process equivalents.

For those few jobs where it is actually getting printed as a spot colour? The job would still print fine --- just send along a PANTONE colour chip, or ask your printer to provide one to verify colour usage.

If you still want to use spot colours, use a free library such as the one developed by GCMI, then your printer can pull out the spot colour book and figure out which you actually want to print w/.

Re: Adobe no longer licenses Pantone colors to be used freely Photoshop

#43

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

captainmuon wrote: post #7

I wonder why they don't just charge more for the dyes (or the dye licenses, I think they are not making them themselves). I think it is bizarre that you should need a license to write down in a file "use this-and-that tube of color for printing this shape". If anything, they should be paying Adobe for including their colors. Maybe this is a possible evolution? Third party ink producers create photoshop add-ins allowi…

> you'd loose the benefit of Pantone standardization

That's the point: these colors should be a standard. Standards can also be acquired for a fee. I also purchased physcial samples of Pantone colors. But paying an annual fee for the privilege of specifying a color in an app? No, thank you.

Re: Adobe no longer licenses Pantone colors to be used freely Photoshop

#44

Post by earthnail »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #32
earthnail wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but Pantone colours is more specialised software and its price shouldn’t be compared to that of software for a wide audience. If you really need Pantone colours, it’s an expense easily worth it. I understand the outcry but TBH I think it’s a bit exaggerated. That being said I‘m also not sure whether it’s really worth it for Pantone to charge for their digital stuff. I can’t imagine it being a huge part of their…

> Yes, but Pantone colours is more specialised software Pantone has nothing to do with software. The "software" here is a mapping of color names to hex. It's literally a text file.

When you buy a coffee for $4, you also don't care that the beans in it cost $0.01. Cost of manufacturing and customer pricing are far more decoupled than most people think.

Or, for a digital analogy, think of the good old discussion of the cost of distributing an mp3 vs the cost of creating the music (esp. back in the iTunes days when the mp3 cost $0.99).

In this case, Pantone prices the verified digital access to their colours. Almost nobody needs that, UNLESS you deal with Pantone colours in the physical world - and there they have real value.

I'm personally questioning the decision of making designers pay for the digital colours as well; I think it hurts adoption in the long run. But I also think the outcry is over the top: if you design products that require standardised colours in the manufacturing process, the cost of that tiny subscription is completely negligible. Also, because it's negligible, I can't imagine it being a huge part of Pantone's revenue, so this move might have done them more harm than good, but well...

Either way, it seems to me that there's tons of people complaining about this price, but pretty much no-one ever really worked with Pantone colours. That's why I think the internet is overreacting.

Re: Adobe no longer licenses Pantone colors to be used freely Photoshop

#45

Post by masklinn »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #28
gruez wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just the rgb value. Using a specific Pantone color ensures that when you get it printed or manufactured it’s the color that you expect.

...which is also what you get by using an RGB / CMYK approximation and then telling the manufacturer which kind of paint should be used for that layer (by specifying a Pantone color). What this $15 subscription is for is technically just that set of mappings built-in into Photoshop.

> ...which is also what you get by using an RGB / CMYK approximation and then telling the manufacturer which kind of paint should be used for that layer.

That’s not going to work, because the natures of the different surface will make a given RGB/CMYK perceptually differ.

Think display calibration, except a lot worse.

The point of the Pantone system is that they’ve done the legwork to get perceptual matchings across surfaces, and design paint mix recipes to achieve reproducible matching. That’s what you’re paying for.

Re: Adobe no longer licenses Pantone colors to be used freely Photoshop

#46

Post by seba_dos1 »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #37
seba_dos1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which is also what you get by using an RGB / CMYK approximation and then telling the manufacturer which kind of paint should be used for that layer (by specifying a Pantone color). What this $15 subscription is for is technically just that set of mappings built-in into Photoshop.

It’s not really, you wouldn’t choose these colors from RGB/CMYK you’d use a sample book. It’s more the tool within PS to tell the printers easily which pantones you want to use. You could of course not subscribe and communicate that manually, but I bet that’s frustrating if you’re an agency working on many brands not a in-house team. $15 a month is a heavy subscription for the convenience though.

> It’s more the tool within PS to tell the printers easily which pantones you want to use.

That's exactly what I said above. It's nothing more than a label with a mapping. The actual matching to whatever is defined by Pantone happens during printing/manufacturing, not in Photoshop.

Re: Adobe no longer licenses Pantone colors to be used freely Photoshop

#47

Post by jansan »

dchia wrote: post #15

Can someone tell me what value does Pantone bring to the table? As a man-on-the-street I fail to understand what they are claiming for. Is this about the naming Pantone has given to a particular Hex Code?

It guarantees that the color will look on a product just like you selected it. In Germany we have an older system called RAL, which is sufficient for most use cases. For example if you ordered a window in RAL 7043 and need to repaint it, you can go to your next hardware store, oder some paint with that color code from any manufacturer, and colors will/should match. But the RAL system applies more or less only to the physical world.

Re: Adobe no longer licenses Pantone colors to be used freely Photoshop

#48

Post by seba_dos1 »

masklinn wrote: post #45
seba_dos1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which is also what you get by using an RGB / CMYK approximation and then telling the manufacturer which kind of paint should be used for that layer (by specifying a Pantone color). What this $15 subscription is for is technically just that set of mappings built-in into Photoshop.

> ...which is also what you get by using an RGB / CMYK approximation and then telling the manufacturer which kind of paint should be used for that layer. That’s not going to work, because the natures of the different surface will make a given RGB/CMYK perceptually differ. Think display calibration, except a lot worse. The point of the Pantone system is that they’ve done the legwork to get perceptual matchings across…

Of course it's going to work, it's the exact same thing except you communicate the Pantone color out of band instead of embedding it in PSD metadata.

Re: Adobe no longer licenses Pantone colors to be used freely Photoshop

#49

Post by taylodl »

masklinn wrote: post #45
seba_dos1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which is also what you get by using an RGB / CMYK approximation and then telling the manufacturer which kind of paint should be used for that layer (by specifying a Pantone color). What this $15 subscription is for is technically just that set of mappings built-in into Photoshop.

> ...which is also what you get by using an RGB / CMYK approximation and then telling the manufacturer which kind of paint should be used for that layer. That’s not going to work, because the natures of the different surface will make a given RGB/CMYK perceptually differ. Think display calibration, except a lot worse. The point of the Pantone system is that they’ve done the legwork to get perceptual matchings across…

This. So much this. The Pantone system covers displays, materials of all types, paper of all types, and fabrics. The same Pantone color will look exactly the same on all those materials. That's why it's the standard and not just for graphic artists, but also for manufacturing, fashion, and other industries I'm probably not even aware of.

Re: Adobe no longer licenses Pantone colors to be used freely Photoshop

#50

Post by robinsonb5 »

bitwize wrote: post #23
dchia wrote: post #15

Can someone tell me what value does Pantone bring to the table? As a man-on-the-street I fail to understand what they are claiming for. Is this about the naming Pantone has given to a particular Hex Code?

PANTONE colors are specific mixes of pigments, not RGB or CMYK values. A PANTONE color includes elements like texture and lustre in its definition that cannot be captured in primary-color systems like RGB or CMYK. Certain trademark shades, like Tiffany blue, are captured as PANTONE colors as well. PANTONE is the standard for print graphic design because a designer will always know exactly how a PANTONE color will loo…

Yes indeed, the lustre makes a huge difference with some colours - sometimes even affecting the perceived hue, not just the vibrance - Pantone 136C vs 136U for example. Same ink, different paper.
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