Quick Tip: Quickly convert CMYK to Pantone
Tutorial Details
- Program: Illustrator CS4
- Difficulty: Beginner
- Length: 2:14 min
A few times a each month we revisit some of our reader’s favorite posts from throughout the history of Vectortuts+. This Quick Tip by Cheryl Graham was first published on January 8th 2010.
Have you ever found yourself rushing a file for the printer but your client hasn’t specified a spot color for their design? Finding a spot color equivalent to CMYK can be difficult. What your client sees is often different to what you see. Here’s a quick way to find the Pantone© equivalent for a CMYK process color without the use of a color book. This tip is perfect for designers who need to use professional offset printing.
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Another time saver! Thank You!
This is nice! Thank You so much! Recently I lost an hour matching the right pantones, great tut!
I’ve been trying to find out how to do this for ages!! Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!
more videos! Means less reading…
Oh my oh my,
Just spent 20+ minutes yesterday searching through the swatches.
Thanks a zillion times over for this time saver!
Is 3 color job because tint of Pantone is another color.
Not really, if the Pantone color is used for press printing then a single plate would be made and the lighter areas of the color would have less area for the ink to get through, so it’s still one color.
If you set it as a Pantone and export your art the wrong way then it will be 4 colors again, also as a side note for everyone, using Pantone swatches to reduce the colors of a document isn’t going to save you money at the press, if anything it will cost you more because Pantone is a specialty mixed ink and has to be applied by the technician… As a side, side, side note, don’t try this with metallic, you’ll end up with mustard (I’ve seen this happen before)
Shouldn´t you choose the final colour in pantone colour book and then apply it on the screen? If you convert CMYK to Pantone by just seeing the screen, you won´t know how is going to be the final result.
Please give me some advice.
Thanks.
It is a two colour job still, a tint of a pantone represents the amount of ink used for the coverage area (with the paper colour filling the gaps).
Great tutorial. Will come in handy.
Will be using this for sure. Great tip!
Thanks for the useful tip!!! It’s exactly what I need
fantastic! great to know it and save ourselves so much time, thanks!!
Very helpful!
I wish I had known this a few months ago…
nice nice one tutorial and just what i need
Great quick tip – thanks!
Thanks
Great tip, this will save me a lot of time and frustration
Great quick tip. Would be great if someone wrote an article explaining Pantone and the different Pantone options available
Very nice quick tip I was looking for something like this a few months ago when converting a logo to pantones. Thanks.
…yep, nice tip here…
…however, always worth bearing in mind that the pantone swatches the conversion makes is “best guess” and not always “accurate” (same with trying to do the same with photoshop color picker)…
…looking in a pantone book and agreeing on a pantone with said client is still highly advised, which would then avoid the situation of clients returning with “this pantone used on my printed work looks awful!”…
…too many variables in print that go wrong to take rushed guesses with other peoples work…
…this method is great for getting jobs onto separate plates however, but that is where it probably ends…
…also worth noting that this conversion process is wholly dependant on your color profiles settings and also how pantones are being used in illustrator (either LAB or CMYK builds in the fly out menu of the swatches palette)…
…with this in mind, the same CMYK values will therefore render to a different pantone reference if you tried this on computers set up differently with regards to the above settings…
…so all in all, your computer will “best guess” based on your color profile setup (and whether LAB or CMYK builds are used in the swatches palette fly out options > “Spot Colors”…
…and the profiles you are using will either render a CMYK color to a pantone that is way off or pretty close, but will always be a bit of a color lottery going on in the background…
…with the above in mind i wouldn’t therefore conclude this process to be a “perfect” workflow solution when dealing with conversions from CMYK to spot colors and would really be described as a bit “hit and miss” to some extent…
Thanks for the comments Andrew, color conversion really can be a minefield of issues.
…absolutely LoungeKat!!
…it is very confusing for many of us and a real tough one to bend your head around!
I thought it worth pointing this out to those that read this far down, that are well versed in using computer software to generate artwork for print (or the web for that matter). I am of course in no way “frowning” upon the author of this quick tip for not mentioning this side of the coin of color conversions, after all color is too big a subject for a quick tip!!
In my experience I have and still do come across clients (and even fellow workers) not really grasping the in’s and out’s of color on digital devices through creative software. I certainly don’t claim to be a “color guru” by any stretch really, but i do think it is worth informing of how much impact ICC profile conversions can be on color outputs. This of course applies to RGB > CMYK as much as it does from CMYK > Spot Colors.
Muchisimas gracias excelente quick tip!
Great tutorial, thank you! All of the years I have been doing this, and just today (a lovely Sunday morning) this issue came up with a t-shirt design I’m working on. I thought it was supposed to be designed as a 4-color heat transfer but turns out they are planning to screen print. I was concerned that the design would be a bear to recolor at this stage but this video taught me something new and made the process straightforward.
Thank you for your concise and easily understandable tutorial!!!! I don’t use AI much, just EVERY DAY, so this was invaluable!!!!
Thank you. So useful for 4color over 2 jobs! Short, clear and to the point!
that’s OK for that super simple 2 color design; but when you deal whith more colors and a real design with lots of layers this is not the option.
The thing to do is:
1-select all
2- create a new color group at the swatches (the folder with a plus sign)
3-select the color group if not selected already
4-click the edit or apply color group button
5-click on the icon that looks like a table to limit the color group to colors in a swatch library
6-choose the Pantone library you need (ex. color books/pantone solid coated)
7-exit that window and click yes. Now your color group has the equivalent Pantone colors
If you later need to replace one Pantone color for another drag the new pantone with the alt/option key over the old one on the color group you created and voila; all the design replaces the color.
I have an image that is shaded (gradient) black to white. How do I convert it into a single pantone black??
Can you edit the gradient? You just take the black color convert the swatch to Pantone then add it to your gradient
How do i decide which color book to use? i.e Process Uncoated or Process Coated etc.
Is there a main generic book to get the PMS colors?
It really depends on the paper you’re ultimately going to end up printing on, and it also depends on your printer. MOST of the time however you’re going to be printing on coated paper, so you’re mostly going to want to use Process Coated. Again, if you’re unsure, ask the printer about the paper-type that you’re going to be printing on to be sure.
AWESOME! I had 5 colors to convert from an Indesign document for a school who wanted to use Silk Screen colors on their cover. The ink companies only use Pantone colors, so this tutorial saved me literally hours of work trying to match stuff up. Saved this as one of my favorite sites.
WOW! Just shared with the entire office. Genius!
As someone that works with pantone colors all day, this is one of the best tutorials I’ve seen! Normally I have to take the CMYK values into photoshop’s color picker and find them from there, but 95% of the work I do is in illustrator, do this saves me SO much time! Thank you!
Thanks so much–this is such a huge time saver (that I wish I’d known about years ago!)
much gratitude.
Awesome, that is a quick way to find a Pantone. It makes it easier to design with the color wheel. Thanks !
You saved me!!! THANK YOU!!
Fab. That really is a massive help! Thank you.
thnx man.. that was really helpful
Super Awesome! Very helpful and much appreciated.
This is really cool and very helpful. Thanks for sharing. Cheers..!!!
Thanks for the Tutorial!
Just one comment, always use Solid Uncoated when choosing a Pantone or PMS color.
Fan-effing-tastic! Thank you for this.
Wow! Thank you VERY much! Been trying to figure out a good PANTONE match for a while!
Thank you so much for this tutorial! I’ve never used this dialog box and the tutorial was clear and to the point. I’ll be using this more frequently now — a very handy tool!
AWESOME tip, and also thanks to Luis Oscar Cruz for his tip on using with larger projects/more colors.
Things like this make me very happy that I hang w/ Tuts+!
Hello
I am have created my artwork in illustrator CS5 and want to change a CMYK colour I have used through out my artwork to a pantone colour in one easy go. I can see how to replace the CMYK to another CMYK colour or RBG, LAB ect but not to my pantone in my library.
Is anyone able to help?
Harri
If you use the magic wand you can select all the areas of that color, make it a global swatch then change the value of the swatch and all of the colors should change with it.
Just come across this post, via Twitter, really really helpful. Thank you
Oh wow! SERIOUSLY useful tut for me.
I don’t think I can say thank you enough right now!
Wow, that’s awesome! Thank you, thank you, thank you…
I was somewhat surprised not many people know about this Illustrator feature, but then I realized that lot of designers don’t work with print design, or haven’t yet. Good stuff, anyway!
It sure is a time saver, but the two different methods provided you with two different results (175 for the first method, and 1655 for the second).
Thanks for a very useful tutorial.
old dog, new trick….!
Thanks for making this video. Appreciate it.
OMG thank you for this!! Found this tutorial during a Google search it was exactly what I needed. Awesome!
thanks! very helpful for a new job I’m starting
)
Helpful yes… but “..makes for a four color job. And you want to keep this cheap…”
Don’t know where you print but every printshop I’ve used in the past 30 years is more expensive for a 2 color job than a full/4 color job… I’d rather clients keep their multi color jobs in CMYK as its always most more economical to print in full color nowadays… Customers thank me for saving them money and having a great looking color job… Of course if its a MUST HAVE PMS XXX, then yes of course the customer is always right, but it will cost more.