Problems with PANTONE Color Accuracy

Spot colors are special premixed inks to be used directly in the press, and the best-known spot colors are PANTONE colors.

The PostScript Printer contains an option called Automatic PANTONE Calibration, which can easily match most of the PANTONE Solid Coated spot colors. When an application sends a PANTONE color to print, it sends the PANTONE name together with its own estimate of equivalent CMYK values. The Automatic PANTONE Calibration facility recognizes the PANTONE name and converts it to CMYK in a way that depends on the printer model and the selected paper type, enabling the color to be rendered with greater precision than is possible with the generic CMYK values sent by the application.

Even when using Automatic PANTONE Calibration, it cannot be expected that the printer matches the PANTONE colors exactly. The printer is certified by Pantone for some papers, but this does not mean that it can reproduce 100% of the PANTONE colors.

In order to use Automatic PANTONE Calibration, an application that recognizes the PANTONE colors, and a calibrated PostScript Printer is needed.

The Automatic PANTONE Calibration facility emulates PANTONE Solid Coated colors only (suffix C). Other PANTONE colors will be printed using the CMYK values sent by the application.

If a non-PostScript Printer is being used, or if an application (such as Adobe Photoshop) is being used that does not send the name of the PANTONE color to the Printer, then the Automatic PANTONE Calibration will not be available. Instead, if required, each PANTONE color has to be manually converted to CMYK values in the application, using tables produced especially for the printer and paper type.

If the application has a facility to convert PANTONE colors to CMYK values automatically, it probably does not take into account the type of Printer or paper type, so better results will be achieved with a manual conversion using the tables.

A PANTONE calibrated color chart in EPS, TIFF, and PDF format can also be obtained, which can be convenient if the application being used has an eyedropper tool with which colors can be picked up from an imported graphic.