Summer's over - ready for Spring?

Every professions has its seasons -- and I've always enjoyed the paradox that exists in the world of apparel design and fashion -- when it's cold and snowy out, you're designing the summer fashions, and vice versa. So now that Summer has officially ended, it's only normal to start thinking about spring...

Today, Pantone published their Fashion Color Report for Spring 2010. Click on the image below to download a copy of it.



I was particularly pleased to see that this year, Aurora (a derivative of my favorite color, yellow) made the top 10 list. Here are the words right from Pantone: "Reminiscent of the first glimpse of yellow as the sun begins to rise over the horizon, this shimmering, slightly greenish yellow adds a bold infusion."
Also making the list were Pink Champagne, Tomato Puree, and Eucalyptus. Now it's time to throw a few of these colors at Kuler and see what you can come up with!

Say what? You don't have an Illustrator swatch library for the Pantone Textile Library? You mean you actually look for a color in your Textile book and then try to manually create a new swatch and match it on screen? Are you mad? Run -- don't walk -- to the Adobe Illustrator Exchange and download the Pantone Textile Library today!

Go Goe Pantone

The color folks over at Pantone have recently been in the news, as they have merged with X-Rite. But they apparently aren't stopping there as today, Pantone has announced a complete new product line of... colors.

The PANTONE GOE System (pronounced "GO") is a brand new set of colors -- 2058 of them to be exact -- which are organized in an entirely new way. Unlike the previous PMS system, GOE colors are organized chromatically, according to the color wheel. An entirely new numbering system is also in place, which is supposed to be more intuitive. For example, if you divide a color wheel into 165 slices (like ticks on a clock), you'd quickly be able to identify a color by seeing its number. Colors are now numbered and organized in a more intuitive fashion as well.



Previously, each page on your Pantone guide had 7 color swatches on it. The full strength color was in the middle, and there were 3 lighter colors shown above it and 3 darker colors shown beneath it (lighter colors are achieved by adding white ink and darker colors are achieved by adding black ink). The GOE system still lists each page with 7 colors, but the color at the bottom is the full strength color (with no black added) and above it are 6 lighter versions of the color (using white). According to this logic, the colors are now named as follows:

70-2-3 C

This translates to 70 (the slice of color, or the hue, which is blue), 2, which is the 2nd page in the book of blues, and 3, which is the 3rd color that appears from the top of that page. The C stands for Coated, as it did before.

Whether you buy into this new numbering system or not, I know my brain will still scream 187 when I see a deep red color. Which brings me to an important point -- Pantone claims that the GOE system does NOT replace the existing PMS system. So both will exist. Obviously, Pantone wants people to use the GOE system (a full kit with a totally cool museum-quality display case retails for $499), but the PMS system isn't going away.



I guess this means more confusion for those in the Print industry. The PMS system relied on 13 different inks and the new system actually uses less colors -- 10 inks -- while producing nearly 1000 more colors. But printers will still need to stock inks from both systems (there is an overlap, so you don't have to stock 23 colors).

As if the colors itself weren't enough, Pantone has also included software with the GOE system (we are, after all, living in the year 2007). The software (which runs as a Widget or a Gadget) allows you to compile a library of colors, which is similar in concept to kuler -- although the similarities end there. Pantone may know a heck of a lot about color, but they are a bit behind when it comes to designing a computer application. myPantone, as the software is called, is pretty smart, as it even knows if your monitor is calibrated. You can use color pickers, color wheels, and even pick complementary colors to find your desired Pantone colors. However, the user interface for myPantone leaves much to be desired. While it's entirely possible that I've seen a beta version and that the user interface will be cleaned up before it ships, I am less than impressed with the implementation of the software -- especially considering that I can pick libraries of Pantone colors using kuler and Illustrator.



One cool feature that myPantone does offer is the ability to build palettes of colors directly from a photograph. While this can be done with a few clicks using Illustrator's Live Trace and Live Color features, the process is faster in myPantone. In addition, there are plenty of people out there who don't use Illustrator (shame on them). If Pantone puts some effort into designing myPantone into something usable, I think it would be a great addition to the software I use. Even better, I'd rather see Pantone license their matching technology that runs behind myPantone. That way, Adobe or any other company could simply tap into an API that most designers are already familiar with.



There are other parts of the GOE system (like a better "chip" system which uses reusable "sticky note" chips instead), and you can either purchase these items individually, or as an entire kit.

Overall, the new GOE system is pretty cool. Like most things in life, it will take some getting used to. I may install a picture window and professional lighting just to show off the cool GOE package. The price is a bit hefty though, so I don't see individual designers being able to fork over the cash just yet -- although larger studios should probably consider GOE just for all of the new colors alone. I have no idea when Adobe apps will have the new GOE libraries included (I will assume CS4), although we may see libraries that we can download before then. Pantone has assured me that they are actively working with all of their partners to help bring GOE to the masses.

Feel free to comment and add your own feelings or views about this new offering from Pantone.

Getting Pantone support with kuler

It's often that I hear folks talk about how wonderful kuler is, but it's also often that I hear print designers complain that they wish they could also find Pantone colors with kuler as well. After all, getting RGB or even CMYK values doesn't help them when they need to assign a Pantone color to a logo or a job they are working on.

Well, if you have Illustrator CS3 (and my survey says that more than half of you do), then you'll be happy to know that your worries are no more. The Live Color feature in Illustrator CS3 can easily provide that information. In fact, with kuler also available from within Illustrator, it's literally a few clicks of a mouse to turn any kuler theme of colors into Pantone equivalents.

I've recorded a video podcast over at Terry White's most excellent Creative Suite Podcast site, that shows the exact steps you need to follow to:

1. Use Illustrator's kuler panel to find color themes
2. Add kuler themes to Illustrator's Swatches panel
3. Use Live Color to convert kuler themes to Pantone equivalents
4. Export Pantone kuler themes from Illustrator as .ASE files
5. Import Pantone kuler themes into InDesign

In somewhat related news, X-Rite has recently announced that they are acquiring Pantone. X-Rite has been pretty successful in the digital color space, while Pantone is considered by many to be the standard system used not only in the print world, but in textiles and even interior design as well. Time will only tell what this means for designers moving forward, but it's certainly something to keep an eye on. More info here.

Busting the Myth: achieving consistent color across Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign

Plenty has been written about the holy grail of color consistency -- getting your screen and your print output to match across Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign (and Acrobat too). Adobe themselves will even talk about the newer setting in Bridge or in Adobe Creative Suite 2 in general which allows you to synchronize your color settings across the suite. And the nice thing is that it works -- for the most part.

But even with these settings, we still find those out there who complain of colors not matching. Mainly, these are files that include spot colors. I've seen some people talk about these issues, and I've seen a few suggestions for solving the issue as well. In fact, it always seems that spot colors throws a wrench into the workflows we depend on every day. A while back I discussed how spot colors and transparency can present some unexpected results (and I presented a solution to the issue).

I've touched on the real solution to this problem before, but only in smaller specific cases. Here, I hope to present a clear understanding of these settings that accomplish three very important things:

1. Your spot color plates are preserved.

2. The integrity of your spot color CMYK values are preserved should you choose to convert your spots to process late in the workflow.

3. Your onscreen proofs AND your composite proof prints that contain spot colors will match accurately across Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, and Acrobat.

I'll start by saying that some have offered solutions of switching the spot color definitions in Illustrator or InDesign to use LAB values (which match Photoshop) -- but this can be VERY dangerous and results in the loss of number 2 mentioned above. Sure, we all know that a designer should use spot and process colors as needed, but we also know that many designers will spec spot colors (either because it's easier to do so by picking them from a book, or because they don't know any better). In addition, printers may convert spots to process late in workflows as job specs change under deadline. Item 2 listed above can often mean the difference between a job that prints correctly or one that must be reprinted (and at who's cost?).

UNDERSTANDING BOOK COLOR

So first, let's understand something that was introduced to Adobe Creative Suite 2: Book Color. You may notice that at times, a swatch will show up in Illustrator CS2 as something called a "book color". This occurs in InDesign CS2 as well, and here in the United States, you'll find it most often when you specify Pantone colors. So what is this book color setting? Well, here's the story: one of the reasons why we use spot colors is simply because there are colors that simply aren't reproducable in CMYK. Bright blues, purples, greens and oranges are perfect examples. But you also know that there are CMYK conversions of these Pantone spot colors. Pantone delivers an entire Excel spreadsheet to Adobe that lists each Pantone color, along with their LAB color equivalents. Obviously, the LAB color values match closer to the real color. Pantone also delivers a Solid to Process library which specifies the CMYK values of Pantone colors. Obviously, the latter is far less accurate and results in color shifts (and if you're paying attention, you know that by default, Photoshop uses the LAB values and AI, ID, and Acrobat use the CMYK values, which means that placing PS content into the other apps can result in color shifts).

Traditionally, a single swatch can only contain a single color definition. Since Illustrator or InDesign always used the CMYK values, proofing spot colors from these apps -- either on screen or on a composite proof -- was less than desirable. Especially considering the statement made in the previous paragraph, color shifts are also common due to this.

A book color swatch is a swatch that contains BOTH the LAB and the CMYK values of a spot color. In this way, Adobe can be more intelligent and use the values that are best for the situation. But there's a catch. You need to specifically tell Illustrator (or InDesign or Acrobat) that you want to use one value or another for the task at hand. But the important thing here is that you don't want to choose one OVER the other -- you always want to have both at your disposal. By this I mean, when you are actually printing and separating as a spot color, you want the best possible proof. But when you decide late in your workflow to convert your spot to process, you don't care about the LAB value -- you care about the CMYK breakdown and the consistency of that breakdown with other artwork, apps, etc. If you instruct your app to use the LAB color space for your swatch, then if you ever convert your spot to process, you get a LAB to Process conversion -- NOT the CMYK breakdown that the spot color manufacturer has specified in their book.

So what do you do? You use a feature that you would normally never imagine would have anything at all to do with this.

OVERPRINT PREVIEW TO THE RESCUE

OverPrint Preview is a wonderful feature that exists in Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat. But it's the worst named feature ever to grace those programs. That's because you might think that OPP only simulates or displays any overprint commands on your screen (which is very helpful). But it also goes a step further and uses a different algorithm for displaying spot colors. When you have a book color specified, we discussed that the swatch contains both LAB and CMYK values. In normal Preview mode, AI, ID, and ACRO all use the CMYK values for displaying the colors on your screen. But when OPP is turned on, the apps display those colors on the screen using the LAB values in the swatch.

So the first thing we've learned is that if you want to see consistent spot colors on your screen across all of your applications, don't touch the swatches -- rather change your preview mode by turning Overprint Preview on. This way, the integrity of the swatch remains, but you're basically instructing your application to display the color on your screen using the more accurate and consistent LAB values.

But the question is, what about composite proofing? I understand that I can use OPP to SEE my colors in a consistent way on screen, but how can I also get color proofs without color shifts? The answer is...

SIMULATE OVERPRINT

I always wondered why if I create a file without any overprints in it, I can go to the Print dialog and see that the Simulate Overprint command is available. If there are no overprints present, the item should be grayed out, no? The answer is that when you turn on simulate overprint in the Print dialog, the same thing is happening as we discussed above with Overprint Preview. The printer is using the LAB values for the color, not the CMYK values.

So the second thing we've learned is, if you want to see consistent spot colors on your composite proof prints, turn Simulate Overprint on in the Print dialog box. Again, this feature is available in AI, ID, and ACRO.

If you use OPP and Simulate OP, then you never lose the CMYK definition of the color that was specified by the book manufacturer, so it's always safe to convert to process at any time in the workflow if necessary.

In closing, you can ask why AI or ID even allow users to switch their spot colors to use only the LAB equivalents at all, if based on what you read here, it's such a bad thing. The answer is that in a color managed workflow, printers or RIPs may be able to better match spot colors to specific press or paper stock conditions when going straight from LAB. So I would strongly suggest that if you do want to use the methods described by others (such as Steve Werner's suggestion which I've linked to above), you first speak with your printer -- or you make sure to never convert your spots to process.

C vs. CVC -- a battle of Pantone proportions

As many of you already know, Pantone colors were once named with "CVC" and "CVU" after their numbers. These were to indicate Computer Video Coated and Computer Video Uncoated. But in the year 2000, Pantone switched to a universal naming scheme, using only C for coated, M for matte, or U for uncoated. But since the naming itself wasn't enough, Pantone also changed the actual color breakdowns, or CMYK representations of those colors. A new Spot to Process Guide was published as well.

Illustrator 10 was the first version of Illustrator to use these newer libraries (according to Adobe's licensing agreement with Pantone, Adobe is required to ship their products with the latest available libraries).

This opened the doors for a potential problem: If you opened an older Illustrator file that used an older Pantone CVC number, the CMYK equivalent of that color might not match the newer CMYK equivalents found in the newer Pantone C libraries that ship with newer versions of Illustrator.

In reality, if you are specifying a Pantone color, and are printing it as a spot color plate, the underlying CMYK values really don't mean much (except for proofing). But on press, everything will be fine, as those CMYK values are never used.

However, many designers use Pantone colors -- and those colors are many times converted to process later in the workflow -- either by another designer or by the printer. This can cause color shifts where the older and newer colors appear.

For this reason, the release of both Illustrator 10 and Illustrator CS also shipped with both the newer C libraries as well as the older CVC libraries, so that users could load and use the older CVC colors and migrate to the newer colors as they were ready to do so. Basically, Illustrator will allow you to import older colors in an unchanged state, and you can choose to manually move to the new colors -- thereby retaining the integrity of the older files.

However, InDesign chose to take a different route to address this problem.

As a page layout application, InDesign is used to aggregate content from other sources and applications. When you place content into InDesign -- for example, an EPS, a PDF, or an Illustrator file -- InDesign will look for any spot colors in that file and add those colors to its own Swatches palette. Now, if you already have a newer Pantone C color that exists in your file (say for example, Pantone 485 C), then if you place an older Illustrator file with a Pantone 485 CVC swatch, the result will be TWO plates in your InDesign file -- one named Pantone 485 C and one named Pantone 485 CVC. Because of the difference in the name, these colors will separate on two separate plates.

To prevent this from happening though, InDesign has code that can recognize the names of Pantone colors. When InDesign sees a Pantone CVC number, it imports it and merges it into the same swatch as the C number -- meaning if you place a file with Pantone 485 CVC into InDesign, that color is automatically merged with the newer Pantone C number -- and the result is a single plate. Which is nice. But there's one problem -- in this process, InDesign uses the newer Pantone C CMYK equivalents of the color. In fact, even if you import a CVC color into InDesign, and you don't even HAVE an exisiting C color in your file, InDesign will recognize the CVC number and automatically convert the CMYK equivalents to match the newer book color (the C values). This means there is no way in InDesign to preserve the older values, if you had wanted to. That means if you convert that spot color to process in InDesign, the color values will change -- and there's nothing at all that you can do about it.

You can argue whether InDesign's behavior is correct, or whether Illustrator behavior is correct, but the end result is that Illustrator and InDesign are not consistent, and you'll see different results depending on which app you print these files from. I should point out that Acrobat will mimic Illustrator's behavior here -- so printing from AI and Acrobat will give you the same result -- but printing from InDesign will result in something different.