How do you keep Pantone colours between screen and paper?

[Pyanepsion]

Hello everyone,

My graphic designer has established Pantone shades for my practice’s graphic universe. In CMYK printing, U.S. Coated (SWOP) v2 colour profile, it’s perfect. The books are printed in the right colours.

How to  proceed to get the same colours on the screen?

Thank you for your explanations.

[Amdival]

These pantone swatch books are available in the Swatches panel.
Of course, these colors will be simulated on screen but have the CMYK color mix embedded in them.

Are you asking how to do create RGB equivalence for dislays?

[Pyanepsion]

2 hours ago, Amdival said:

Are you asking how to do create RGB equivalence for dislays?

Yes.

[Amdival]

Open the PANTONE + CMYK Coated book.
Find your color and select it.
The color is now your fill color.
Double click the fill color circle.
You can see the RGB values.

Whoever is choosing brand colors normally would make a decision about what PMS color to use aswell as CMYK and RGB makeups. What I described will give you a quick automated way of finding the RGB values.

[Amdival]

It might be helpful to hit the hamburger then Appearance > Show as List

 

[lacerto]

16 hours ago, Pyanepsion said:

How to  proceed to get the same colours on the screen?

If the print process is something that stays identical from job to job so that you are likely to get close to identical colors (e.g., you use the same printer and same paper), it might be easiest to just scan or photograph the printed colors (or color swatches if possible) and then use e.g. sRGB color space and use the Color Picker tool with e.g. 20px x 20px sample ratio and save the picked color value as a swatch in a user-defined application palette.

If you instead want to proceed from an ink-based color definition to profiled swatches, you need to have a desired RGB and CMYK profile pair active and then use the Color panel and its color model list drop-down to have library based colors converted to the currently active RGB and CMYK color spaces.

The screenshot below (taken in InDesign, because it can display PANTONE inks in full gamut and can simultaneously also display RGB and CMYK color profile based color definitions; the route is from PANTONE ink defined in Lab, to sRGB, US Web Coated v2, and back to sRGB):

The procedure is basically identical in e.g. Publisher even if you cannot see the definitions simultaneously. The last swatch (and the rightmost object) shows conversion of "printed" CMYK value getting an equivalent sRGB definition so that printed colors can be reproduced accurately in digital versions.

[Pyanepsion]

We have defined colours using Pantone codes for our printed works.

• Colour format CMYK/8
• Colour profile U.S. Web Coaded (SWOP) v2.

We also want to offer books for e-readers and the Internet.

• Colour format, we don't know if we should take RGB/8, RGB/16, or RGB/32 (HDR).
• Colour profile sRGB IEC61966-2.1.

Example of Pantone 266 C. Here is a rectangle using this colour in CMYK and below it is exported as a PNG image. The black text uses the default black of the software. The CMYK file was duplicated and its colour profile modified in the different copies.

By changing the different colour formats, we can see that the colours change, especially in RGB/32 (HDR).

1. How do you proceed to obtain always the same colours in RGB colour profile as in CMYK colour profile?
2. Which RGB colour profile is most suitable for the Internet?
3. Which RGB colour profile is best suited to electronic readers?

[lacerto]

Here is PANTONE Color Manager simulation of PANTONE 266C shown in sRGB and US Coated Web v2 color spaces:

  

...and here is the route within InDesign:

So the point is that 266C is within the sRGB gamut and can be represented well in that color space. But if you have really printed in CMYK rather than using a PANTONE special ink, on coated paper (even if using US based profile which does not necessarily work ideally in European press), you have something like shown above, a bit darker tone. The actual paper used has big effect on how colors are reproduced. Whatever gets printed, it is likely to look somewhat different from the computer simulation (or even the printed PANTONE swatch), so I think that the best method to try to get a screen match is simply scanning or photographing, then comparing and adjusting accordingly. If your print processes are constant, this would give the best match. 

UPDATE: Forgot to reply to your questions: sRGB would be the best option for digital content whether viewed on desktop or mobile devices.

[Pyanepsion]

Thank you, @lacerto. You confirm that it is therefore appropriate to correct the RGB palette by piping the image from the CMYK palette.

1. I noted the same RGB values in RGB 8 as CMYK, minimal differences in RGB 16, and very large differences in RGB 32 HR.

But what about the other two questions:

2. Which RGB colour profile is most suitable for the Internet (RGB/8, RGB/16, or RGB/32 HDR)?

3. Which RGB colour profile is best suited to electronic readers (RGB/8, RGB/16, or RGB/32 HDR)?

[Amdival]

1 hour ago, Pyanepsion said:

Thank you, @lacerto. You confirm that it is therefore appropriate to correct the RGB palette by piping the image from the CMYK palette. But what about the other two questions:

2. Which RGB colour profile is most suitable for the Internet (RGB/8, RGB/16, or RGB/32 HDR)?

3. Which RGB colour profile is best suited to electronic readers (RGB/8, RGB/16, or RGB/32 HDR)?

Use 8-bit
 

[lacerto]

5 hours ago, Pyanepsion said:

But what about the other two questions:

Use sRGB profile (and RGB/8) for distribution of all digital publications (higher bit-depths are basically useful only in editing stage). 

[Pyanepsion]

I found some more precise information.

1. A JPEG file is coded in 8 bits
2. A RAW file is coded between 12 and 14 bits depending on the camera.

In 8 bits, it is therefore impossible to record all the information present in a RAW format. In 16-bit, photo editing will be much more precise and detailed, especially if the photo undergoes quite complex editing or HDR processing.

32-bit HDR is a format known mainly for 3D images. It allows for a wider range of colours between blacks and whites. It is particularly useful for illuminating 3D scenes. A single HDR image is enough to achieve a hyper-realistic rendering.

But that’s not all. Here’s what Affinity’s help says about 32-bit HDR:

https://affinity.help/photo/fr.lproj/index.html?page=pages/HDR/hdr_editing.html?title=Modification HDR 32 bits