pantone / cmyk
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- 8 Responses
- JamesBoynton
Hi Guys, i am finalising a vector logo in illy.
It has overlays and gradients (hmmm) in it.
My question is should i attempt to make the colours pantone or can i just leave it as cmyk values?.
The logo will always be full colour and printed cmyk (no spots).
I've never set up one like this before so any help would be good.
James
- skt0
if it will always be cmyk and never spots, why would you try and convert it to spots?
- JamesBoynton0
Well.... i'm not sure i just wanted to check it wasnt terrible to not have pantones associated with a logo.
- JamesBoynton0
I guess its the way i do it, i usually choose pantones... but quite often its printed full colour so i change the pantones to cmyk but they keep there pantone name...
i guess you have answered my Q.
Cheers skt
James
- no worries. but i hardly do any print, so i could well be wrong.skt
- i think you are right, im the same, this is the first print job in a while... just needed a refresher!JamesBoynton
- Shepstar150
Depends if you print cmyk or want it to have it printed in pantone, i guess. If it gets printed in cmyk why use spot colours?
You use pantone if you wan't a certain colour that isn't available in cmyk or you have a logo that should be printed without getting rasterized.
- Spookytim0
I'm not sure I understand your question James, so if this answer doesn't fit, then clearly I have misunderstood. You need to make all the colours process CMYK. There's little point in keeping the Pnatone name as the name of the colour - ie it wont help you any and it may cause a printer to think you want spots but have used CMYKs by mistake.
But for definite you shouldn't include spots in there. And also I'd check very carfully what kind of conversion you get in a pantone conversion book. Just becuase the spot colour you originally selected looks nice doesn't mean it will look anything like that when you convert the spot to a CMYK. Spot colours can have a luminance and vibrancy that isn't acheivable in CMYK so you could end up with some dirty muted tones if you're not careful.
My advice, pick process CMYKs from a process CMYK swatch book, never a spot colour swatch book.
Its around about here, after I've dropped my wisdom, that you need to come back and say "I know all that you stupid twat, I'm not a fucking idiot" and then I go away feeling bad about trying to help out.
- MSL0
If it is NEVER going to printed as a Spot colour - convert the colours to CMYK. But bear in mind that if someone DOES need to print it in Spots - your client will whinge/piss and moan at you.
Personally I always do Vector logos in 2 versions, 1 is a Pantone Spot version (using whatever corp. colours) and 1 is a CMYK version.
- detritus0
A spot colour is just a single printed ink, right? It doesn't make any difference what colours you pick, or how you apply them, only if you decide to supply your printer with a specific instruction regarding the Spot, right?
(I'm kinda half asking here, because I'm not 100% sure myself).
It's probably good practice to try and make your starting colours specific Pantones (or, insert your preferred colour 'manufacturer here), and even to go back to a complexly illustrated logo and try and 're-render' some of the overlaid shaded layers as normal coloured non-overlays.
Where overlays and gradients etc are concerned, they're simply not compatible with specific Spot colours. They're more for few-colour logos in a few-Ink or special-finish-Ink environment.
I think :D
- Sorry - last line = "Spots are more for few-colour.. blah blah"detritus
- LOL@ few-ink!Spookytim
- Laugh at me all you want, but you know my neo Inglish approach is maxi for the win.detritus
- I knew what you meant, it made me laugh because I envisaged James sat there looking for his few-ink swatches.Spookytim
- "Hi, is that the printer? I've decided I want to print this in few-ink, do you have the facilities for that?"Spookytim
- JamesBoynton0
Cheers guys. Yeah, originally i picked just cmyk values.. think i may match them to a CMYK swatch book, so at least if anyone wants to match the colour in future (for ads etc) they can use one of the CMYK swatch colours.
Think i was getting confused with pantone spot colour books and the pantone CMYK color books.
Cheers!