Search:

  Advanced Search

front page → colour

share this article

what are these? ↓ (wikipedia link)
digg!	delicious	reddit	facebook	stumbleupon	technorati

Comment Form

Time of Entry: 2007 10 04 UT - by Eddy Hagen

Hi, I’m the ‘bad guy’ that wrote the letter to Pantone, the one your’re referring to in your article. And I think I have to make some comments, to add a few things, because they don’t seem to be clear to you, to your readers.

* the point that I was making in my letter to Pantone, my biggest criticism to them is the fact that they always refer to RGB, without stating which RGB they are referring to. So if you look at the new Goe color guide, it will show RGB values for each color. Without stating that these colors are sRGB not AdobeRGB. So what will happen in daily live: a designer, who will probably work in AdobeRGB, makes a document in his preferred application and uses the RGB values next to the color (if he’s not using the spot color itself). Which will give a completely wrong color. Because he works in AdobeRGB, Pantone means sRGB. To get a visual example of what I mean, please visit our website: www.graphicbrain.com/pantonegoe. An image tells more than a thousands words…

* the fact that printers won’t have to deal with the RGB is not always the case: the designer in my previous point might give a PDF with RGB Goe colors to the printer. Since the colors are - in this example - encoded in RGB, the RIP will not pick up the exact Goe colors, resulting in colors that are completely off.

* the test I did, resulting in a delta E of 12, was NOT premature. This is actual RGB data in the Pantone Goe color guide that has been shipped to suppliers. I had it in my hands, at GraphExp, so I did test it… (I did not test the software, but the biggest problem is the color guide itself).

* I did not say that designers are not knowledgeable… But when a) Pantone is not stating in which RGB color space the RGB values of Goe colors are defined or b) this information is somewhere hidden in a menu (or a manual that nobody reads), even very knowledgeable designers will make mistakes. Because they, as a professional, work in AdobeRGB and the RGB values of Goe colors are in sRGB (in case they only use the spot color from the digital library, there should be no problem; this is only the case if they use the RGB values as stated).

* I am aware of the reasons why there are different libraries (ctf vs ctp; US inks vs European inks). But you have to agree that all those different libraries can be confusing.
* And the universal system: well, Pantone Goe is a universal system, that’s what I like about Goe (and I mean this). Goe does not communicate color information in CMYK, but in Lab. So only in the last stage, when color management is applied, with the right profile, you will get - the right - CMYK values. Therefor Goe is a blessing for the printing industry

* And there are good reasons why I reacted the way I did: Pantone is such a dominant player in the field of color communication (is there anybody who uses another system???), you can’t get around them / their systems. If they launch a new system, designers will buy it, will start using it. But the Goe system had a flaw. A flaw that would cause the printing industry millions (or maybe even billions) of euros / dollars per year on rejected print jobs, because colors are wrong. So I had to make this much noice about it, before the system was put into the market.

BTW, it worked. Over the last weeks I had contact with Pantone on a regular basis. The first conference call was even with two of their (global) vice presidents, which (imho) shows that I hit a sensitive spot, that Pantone saw the gravity of the issue. Since my letter Pantone has updated the website, now clearly stating that all RGB values in Pantone Goe are sRGB (in the software you can choose sRGB or AdobeRGB). It is in the process of updating all (printed) marketing materials. It will will put inserts in this version of the color guides, the next one will have sRGB printed next to each color patch instead of RGB. And for the software, they are looking how to add more clarity to that.

And when all of that has been done, Pantone Goe will be a blessing for the industry.

Regards,

Eddy Hagen
VIGC

PS: a small correction: I’m not the president of VIGC, but the managing director. And thanks for stating that we have a big influence in our region. Always nice to hear such a thing.

Time of Entry: 2007 10 04 UT - by Henk Gianotten

Erik,
don’t forget that the initial white paper used the RGB notation instead of the sRGB notation.

That was stupid. That was perhaps one of the reasons the poor salesman at Graph Expo did not know how important this is.

So it’s not just a problem of misunderstanding the differences between sRGB and aRGB. Pantone uses several documents (even for the actual PMS systems) where they don’t specify the RGB color space they use for their notation. Those numbers are based on sRGB. That’s the best system they can use because most web based systems, monitors and consumer printers are based on the standard sRGB color space. The PMS system and the Goe systems have their strenght and weaknesses. The overall weackness is the lack of information for the different users. I know that a lot of designers don’t have enough knowledge on Color Management Systems and the influence of transformations from the actual color space (CIE-Lab) to RGB and/or CMYK. One cannot rely on the transforms in the RIP alone. Transformation is sometimes needed in the creative part of the file preparation. So a clear description what systems such as PMS and Goe do, are essential.

Pantone cannot blame the American and European printers that they don’t use identical inks. They do. The international set of CMYK ink standards is ISO 2846-1.
Since 1997. The print standards are ISO 12647-2. Since 1996. Just one standard. There are no important differences in the print standards, just a difference in the systems (process) how to reach the aim values.

Pantone created two versions of CMYK Process Guides. The American and the European. The gray balance, dot gain and other important print criteria have been estabished a long time ago. Pantone could have modified their actual systems to meet these international standards. They decided to create two Bridge systems instead of one. So it was their decision.

Goe can be a solution. It depends how they communicate with their users.

Eddy Hagen of VIGC was very alert and fast. Perhaps to fast. But, if Pantone would have done their homework, the press could have used the proper white paper (with the sRGB notation instead of just RGB) and trend watchers such as Eddy Hagen from Belgium would have understood what the system did.

The GoeGuide is now available. It has no sRGB notation! Just RGB. Plus an additional sheet of information. It describes that the RGB values are sRGB values.
That proves that Pantone made a mistake. Fair enough. Accept that fact. I hope they will improve their communication. I expect they will. One of the advantages of the x-rite merger with Pantone is the fact that Munsell and Pantone (both commercial color notation systems) are combined. That could be a unique combination of knowledge and marketing power.

Time of Entry: 2007 10 05 UT - by Erik Vlietinck

Eddy and Henk,

I understand what you both are saying. I also think Pantone is reacting to Eddy’s remarks. The only thing in the whole discussion that bothers me is that you seem to think there is no responsibility for the designers here.

But let me first answer some remarks made in your comments. Or at least, one remark. Pantone holds the key to colour communication between designers and output --that is what you are saying in your comments. I can go along with that up to the point where you seem to imply that this fact alone allows designers to not read manuals, and to remain ignorant of the tools which they use.

I don’t agree with you there. I think, when you use a tool, you should know how it works, and what it can do. In our modern times, there seems to be some strange notion --especially when computers come into play—that experts must only focus on their “core activity”, which in the case of designers, is designing.

Everything else must come natural. A Pantone colour system must be perfect because we can’t expect the user to read the manual. I think that is a strange idea; it’s as if you give a painter a can of paint and don’t expect him to read how he must mix the paint with thinner in order to make it a usable liquid.

I also think as with painting in the periods of Bosch, Van Eyck, etc, a designer or digital artist is just as much an artist as he/she must be a craftsman. Good craftsmen know how their tools behave. That is why I took over the comments on the open letter written by Eddy.

I still think the deltaE test was a bit premature because of my earlier reasoning AND because myPANTONE is the tool you should use to convert the colours from one space to another. I don’t think you should use Photoshop to do the conversion, because as I’ve tested before when I wrote my Camera RAW report, you can’t rely 100% on Photoshop to make conversions either, unless you’re going to work in Photoshop and nothing else.

If I would criticise any company involved in colour management, even in the sense of supporting colour swatches (such as Adobe Illustrator), it would be that they switch from colour spaces without telling the users and without offering some kind of open source solution so that others might hook into theirs.

As for the inks in the US and EU; I was aware of the standards as explained by Henk, but I thought there were still ink manufacturers who used their own “standard”. If that is not the case, I was wrong in my argumentation.

Time of Entry: 2007 10 05 UT - by Eddy Hagen

Hi Erik,

just two quick (and last) comments:

* my test was not a conversion in Photoshop, nor a conversion with the myPANTONE tool. What I did was the following: I took the RGB values that are stated in the Goe color guides (which have been send out to vendors, ... so real material, no beta-version or something else) and applied these RGB values to an object in a Photoshop document, one document with AdobeRGB as color space, the other document with sRGB as color space. That go me the delta E of 12. (PLEASE: go to www.graphicbrain.com/pantonegoe and look at the picture, this clearly shows what I did, what I’m saying). I did not test the myPANTONE software and the conversions of Goe colors in this software, what you are suggesting.

* on reading manuals: a professional should do this, you’re right about that. But in many occasions this does not happen, as we all know (no time, too complicated, ...). And that leads to mistakes. And especially with all those Pantone libraries, it gets confusing. And you should know that: the ‘error’ you saw with spot color conversions in your comparison of place pictures in InDesign CS3 (report QXP7 vs InDesign CS3), is not a conversion error of Indesign, it’s a color picked from the wrong digital library…

Regards,

Eddy

Time of Entry: 2007 10 05 UT - by Henk Gianotten

Eric,
just a few remarks.

Remark 1: Of course a designer has to know how an application such as Goe works. And I agree that a lot of operators don’t read their manuals. However, the content of the manual has to have a minimal technical level. If the proper notation is not in the documentation, it’s bad!
In a lot of existing Pantone documentation the correct description of the RGB notation is missing.

Even at this moment, you will see a lot a RGB notations in the documentation on Pantone’s web site. That’s a lack of quality, I think.
The fast action of Pantone to modify the web site, white paper and documentation of Goe is highly appreciated.
I request them to do the same for PMS.

Remark 2: The ink standards are ISO 2846-1 for sheet fed and heatset web offset. Ink producers have to meet these standards. Some don’t. Some users even don’t know that ISO 2846-1 replaces the old standards such as “SWOP inks” and Euroscale inks. Right now the whole world has agreed to use just these standards for CMYK inks for offset. It will take some time to get all users aware of this. Pantone knows that the standards changed in 1997 (I exchanged information on this subject since several years) so Pantone can implement these fact in their systems and documentation.

Remark 3 for the readers: Yes, Eric and I both contribute to the Dutch magazine Publish. And we sometimes have different opinions. Great. I love these debates via the web!

Time of Entry: 2007 10 05 UT - by Erik Vlietinck

To Eddy: OK, I was confused about what you had done. Now I understand fully, and you’re right: it shouldn’t have happened. The error I saw was not between Photoshop and InDesign. Basically, it’s a difference between Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom where the read-out of the numbers was different when I tested it. When confronting Adobe with this, they explained why it happened; I believe I reported on it in the report I wrote and which you can download --being a subscriber .

To Henk: OK, I follow you. And yes, we are good colleagues .

Time of Entry: 2008 02 06 UT - by Henk Gianotten

Erik,
I just can inform you that Pantone was not yet able to deliver the non-beta software version of MyPantone Pallettes. This means that the system uses just one color space (sRGB) and the conversion or transformation of color values into other spaces is not (yet) possible. So designers can select a certain sRGB value but cannot calculate the proper Adobe 1998 value (aRGB). A suggested aRGB value cannot be transformed to sRGB and even an Adobe RGB value is directly transformed to equal sRGB values in HTML.
HTML needs sRGB in D65 so the aRGB D50 colors can be different. Pure greens and blues are totally wrong. The pink colors Eddy Hagen showed have the same behavior.
As soon as I get the proper software I will send you my observations.