Pantone color matching problem

Why is this happening? A Pantone chip in the solid, coated swatch book and AI CS3 pantone swatch library don't match.
811C in the chip book is flourescent orange but onscreen it's peach.
Thanks,
Ian

Its as accurate as it can be considering the differences between RGB and CMYK and Pantone. Remember, RGB is really only suitable for screen based graphics - light emitting devices. CMYK is best for 4 color printing processes. Pantone colors are 'spot' or single colors mixed to get that result.
Alot of confusion happens because the three different systems do not easily 'convert' and people get caught when the printed result bears no resembelance to the screen result.
For really best results get your self a Pantone Color Bridge book, select your Pantone color, and then use the RGB or CMYK breakdown they recommend for best color match.
Fluro colors will never print well as CMYK or RGB although they my view well on screen.

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Color match problem

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Unless these RGB values were created in Motion they are not much use to you, each sytem of colour creation has a different colour scheme. Reds are the most difficult colour to match. Where did they oroginate from, Illustrator /photoshop file, a paint or ink chip, densitometer reading or guesswork?
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Can I easily match Pantone colors using Illustrator?

Hi all,
I run a small invitation supply company.
Our primary design tool up until now has been Photoshop Elements.
We recently purchased a $6000 printer from Xerox which is the 'gold standard' for graphic arts and Pantone approved.
We also have a pantone color bridge. When I print a color using the hex code, the color looks NOTHING like the pantone swatch.
I contacted Xerox and they told me that because Elements has a very low degree of color management that we will never be able to easily color match our pantone swatches and that they aren't surprised the color is way off.
I suppose I naively figured that spending $6000 on a printer would get us easy and flawless color matching. Xerox says- not so.
They suggested investing in Illustrator and they are convinced that it will be much more likely to get us to the point that we want. Ultimately I want to be able to pick a color from the pantone deck, enter the code, and feel confident that the print will come out 100% the corresponding color.
Am I living a pipe dream?
I would like some feedback before proceeding.
On top of the financial investment, obviously there is a lot of time that my partner and I will have to spend learning Illustrator.
Any input would be great.
Thanks,
Aaron

Am I living a pipe dream?
Yes.
More precisely, you are just failing to understand the fundamental difference between spot color and process color.
I want to be able to pick a color from the pantone deck, enter the code, and feel confident that the print will come out 100% the corresponding color.
Not gonna happen, even if you do all the tedious color management setup you can.
The above assumes you are, in fact, talking about matching Pantone spot colors. (Pantone does not just publish spot color swatches, but that is the usual sense in which beginners refer to Pantone.)
A spot color is, by definition, an actual, physical, single ink which is loaded into a press. The only way to achieve your 100% pipedream is to load that actual, physical, single ink into your $6000 printer.
But that's how a printing press works, not how your $6000 printer works. It works by printing four "primary colors" of inks and then arranging tiny dots of them in proximity to each other in order to "trick" the eye into seeing them as a mixture of colors on the page in proportions which try to approximate the spot color as best it can.
But physical inks are simply not accurate enough to actually do that. There are many, many spot colors which simply cannot be replicated by mixing arrays of primary colors of inks. That's what all this "gamut" talk is about. That's one reason why spot color inks exist.
The Pantone spot color matching system is a means by which to consistently communicate proportional mixtures of actual, real, physical inks of known specific colors. All anyone (including Pantone) can do with the CMYK inks (or dyes) in a desktop printer is try to recommend percentages of those CMYK inks to best approximate a match to an actual, physical spot color ink.
It gets worse. Your monitor cannot actually match a spot color ink swatch, either. Your monitor glows. Ink doesn't. Even on tediously calibrated systems, there is more to perceived "color" than just numerical values of CMYK or RGB or HSL or Lab. There is chroma. There is reflectance. There is opacity. There is grain.
Then there's the whole matter of the incredibly context-sensitive adaptabability of human vision.
So if you are selling the output of your $6000 printer as the final product, you should not use Pantone spot color swatches as any kind of contract color specification, because your printer cannot actually print spot color inks. If you're doing color-critical work that the customer will refuse when specified colors don't match, you and your customer must specify colors which your device can actually produce.
JET

Problems with color matching when printing...

Hi, I work for a small family business in the P.O.P. industry. We currently have myself and one other designer, we both take illustrator files that have come from the graphic design firm that we contract with and get them ready to print on our Vutek QS3200. However ever since acquiring the printer we have begun to run into problems with the colors when printing. When the files are exported off of my computer, I use either .tif or .pdf files, they print as they should, the colors seem to match the proof and everything goes smoothly. However when the other designer exports a file, he tends to do mainly pdfs, the colors tend to be extremely different from where we want them. Also we will get very strange results, such as yesterday he kept getting a faint yellow 1/2" border around his prints. After I believe 3+ hours of him trying, I was given the original CD and instructed to try. After 15-20 minutes of making the changes that we needed to make (adding a new price point) and ripping, mine printed perfectly.
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Thanks for your time

I've got a few years experience calibrating large format printers. First, the Yellow sounds like a file problem. I used to work with two workstations, one PC ( RIP station ), and one Mac ( file prep station ). I tend to agree with you in that the OS is probably not the problem. But, any Colorburst profiles should remain in the RIP, not in the originator application. My workflow consisted of creating EPS files that were based on established color settings in their given applications ( i.e., Illustrator, Photoshop ) which were interpreted by the RIP which had it's own calibrated profile ( perhaps more than one based on how many different substrates were being used ). Your partner may be complicating things by incorporating a RIP profile prematurely. If there are deviations big enough to be noticed, there has to be something in the application color settings that is causing some type of corruption. This could lead back to the operating system, but I would think it lies somewhere in Bridge or the application color settings. Start there. You should seriously consider implementing a calibration system if you do not have one already. Another slight possibility is the driver's ability to interpret files coming out of Leopard vs. files coming out of Tiger. It may benefit you both to be in the same operating system dynamics, using the same driver versions and RIP profiles. At the very least, match everything that is currently working successfully and put them on both machines. If there is still a noticeable problem in color matching, then something is seriously wrong and you should call in a prepress profiling expert. Hope this helps.

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Thanks for your response--
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Some further clarification may be in order.
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I do a lot of digital imaging for painting contractors. I know there must be an easier way to do what I do, though. I'm hoping if I share my workflow with the pro's here I might get some helpful feedback.
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[large image replaced with link]
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Unfortunately you are making some basic assumptions that are wrong. Colour in a photographs is affected enormously by these factors
the color of light, for example you will find that at different times of day colors will appear completely different.
biases in film stock or digital processes.
how much a surface is illuminated, colors (hue) change at different tonal densities, and this is a hugely complex area, also affected by the TYPE of light, and the reflective quality of the paint.
The best you can do for your client is to produce a realistic representation of the image, how the surfaces MAY appear when painted with the colors. Trying to match the color accurately to swatches is pointless. Getting a general impression is the best you can realistically do.
And doing it so that it looks like an attractive and realistic image will help your client to sell their product, better than accuracy.

Pantone color changes modes from Illustrator to InDesign

I have a logo designed in Illustrator that uses Pantone color 5275 C. When I place it in InDesign, the color is dull and dark. In my Color palette, it says the spot color is based on the LAB mode instead of CMYK. I've never seen that happen before in earlier InDesign versions. How do I get the color mode to match what it is in Illustrator?

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Pantone color matching problem

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