Achieving pantone matches using CMYK ink sets

[Dottonedan]

I have a customer who uses a set of Unions Process inks to mix up pantone matches. Not a pantone mixing set, but process inks...that he uses to (mix up himself and match by eye)


Anyone ever do this and have success?  Just curious how far off or how close he can get.

[Frog]

Can't say not knowing "his" particular knack or skill.

Some just can do this better than others with whatever inks they happen to have.

btw I'm pretty good, but have had to be able to do this much of my career with various graphics inks that had no mixing systems and did not match the Pantone offset formulas.

[printguy]

I'd have to agree with Senor Frog in regards to the individual's skill set. I had an employee a few years back who would reference the pantone formula guide percentages for a specific color and would consistently match pms colors by eye - a true savant.

[ebscreen]

Well, aside from white and black, all the ingredients are there. I'd be more worried about opacity though.

And as Frog says, it certainly is a skill. I'm pretty good myself, but there are some colors that make
quarts of ink go flying. Browns for one. Ugh.

[ScreenFoo]

I do mixes on a regular basis, and although I use process inks on a regular basis to 'bump' colors hue-wise, I don't think I'd want to start with it as a base.  Great on-press properties, but horrible opacity.

I'd think someone who's paying attention could mix a majority of pantone shades with CMYK+W, but I think there are a number of colors that CMYK won't properly match.
One of our customers who does offset has a version of the pantone 'bridge guide' for CMYK--probably a great starting point for formulas if that's your bag... seemed like most of the colors were very close, some not so much.

[Sbrem]

Sounds tedious, but if chronicled as he goes along, it should work. My question though, can CMYK make all of the Pantone colors? Except the fluorescents and metallics of course... I ask because CMYK can't make all the colors we can see, some of them are out of gamut.

Steve

[tonypep]

Correct on all accounts. This is not what they were designed for but can sometimes work. WoW on underbased vector art can be troublesome due to their transparent quality. Also remember the "out of gamut" colors that cannot be matched with CMYK. Pantone used to have a swatch book just for these colors and there are a lot of them.
All in all I can't possibly imagine why I would due so but that's why we're all different!

[tonypep]

Sorry SBREM looks like your post snuck in ahead of mine but at least we're in agreement.

[blue moon]

pantone "Color Bridge" compares the PMS numbers with the closest that can be achieved with 4CP inks. It looks like a regular pantone book, but it has the CMYK and PMS swatches side by side.

I use it very often and can tell you that only about 50%- 60% of the colors can be matched closely. Some of them are not even close, try Orange 021, red 032 for starters.

pierre

[Sbrem]

No problem Tony. I feel valid...

Steve

[bimmridder]

I know this doesn't address the original post, but we do something similar, but different. We do designs that have up to 30  licensed team logos. Unfortunately we don't have a 75 color press. We spent A LOT of time testing and printing simulated Pantone colors using CMYK. We've got it down pretty good. No, we can't match every color called for, so there are still spot colors in some. Out of the hundreds and hundreds of design samples sent in to Properties, I can't remember one coming back for a bad color. It's one little thing that we do that nobody else in our niche will mess with.

[DannyGruninger]

The simulated technique for the logos sounds like an awesome technique. Do you have any photos of printed shirts to share? Sounds awesome


Danny

[bimmridder]

I'll see if I can get  a few pictures and figure out how to post them. And when I said nothing has been rejected by properties, that doesn't mean our simulations are dead nuts, just close enough to pass properties QC. 

[IntegrityShirts]

pantone "Color Bridge" compares the PMS numbers with the closest that can be achieved with 4CP inks. It looks like a regular pantone book, but it has the CMYK and PMS swatches side by side.

I use it very often and can tell you that only about 50%- 60% of the colors can be matched closely. Some of them are not even close, try Orange 021, red 032 for starters.

pierre

Yep, that's what I have and recommended to Gilligan in his thread:

Can someone please recommend a good swatch book set?

I see stuff from $100 bucks to $3,600 bucks.

This one:
http://www.pantone.com/pages/products/product.aspx?pid=1000&ca=1&s=0

Side by side comparisons to show spot/process equivalents.  Great for print design and also great for ink matching software and showing customers the difference in color choices.

[blue moon]

pantone "Color Bridge" compares the PMS numbers with the closest that can be achieved with 4CP inks. It looks like a regular pantone book, but it has the CMYK and PMS swatches side by side.

I use it very often and can tell you that only about 50%- 60% of the colors can be matched closely. Some of them are not even close, try Orange 021, red 032 for starters.

pierre

Yep, that's what I have and recommended to Gilligan in his thread:

Can someone please recommend a good swatch book set?

I see stuff from $100 bucks to $3,600 bucks.

This one:
http://www.pantone.com/pages/products/product.aspx?pid=1000&ca=1&s=0

Side by side comparisons to show spot/process equivalents.  Great for print design and also great for ink matching software and showing customers the difference in color choices.

that's the one! I would suggest looking for an older model as they switched to thinner paper recently!

pierre