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The creator does have experience producing physical paints and pigments, so they are aware of the points you're making. The purpose here is not to replace Pant

The creator does have experience producing physical paints and pigments, so they are aware of the points you're making. The purpose here is not to replace Pantone entirely, but to be able to represent Pantone colors somewhat faithfully in digital documents. Pantone does provide official RGB approximations, but apparently you can't use them in an Adobe product anymore. This is meant as an alternative.

kabes 4y ago
> Pantone does provide official RGB approximations, but apparently you can't use them in an Adobe product anymore This is wrong, you can still use the rgb approximations.
- donatj 4y ago
  Sure, you can still use the colors, but they're removing the picker for them.
  - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
    They are also making it so anything that previously had the colour selected using the picker is set to black unless you pay them a licensing fee. There is obviously value in Pantone and what they do but the digital representation of Pantone's colours should be treated the same way APIs are.
- Bjartr 4y ago
  But existing uses of Pantone colors will be appearing as black, not their RGB approximations, unless you pay $21/mo. from November on in Adobe products.
  - Angostura 4y ago
    What a ludicrous business decision
    - genmud 4y ago
      Having been on the receiving end of things like this, it’s likely outside Adobes hands. I had a product where they changed licensing to a revenue sharing model, asking for 10% vs a flat fee. Problem was, only like 3-4 customers out of hundreds were using the licensed feature. Long story short, it made it unsustainable and we quickly dropped the technology.
mikeryan 4y ago
If using Pantone compatible colors in Adobe is necessary for your business you can license the color palette for use in Adobe products and pay the $15 a month for it. Cost of doing business.
- hakfoo 4y ago
  The problem is that it wasn't a cost of doing business last month. So if someone used what was an ordinary feature in their files, they can no longer open them in any usable manner-- apparently it maps everything to black. Okay, Adobe and Pantone have decided to do a bold business decision that breaks existing files. That's their perogative. But in terms of minimizing bridge burning, their goal should be to fail tactfully and with as little lossage as possible. For a comparable, if you loaded a 12-bit-per-channel high-dynamic-range file in a software stack that only supported 8 bits per channel, the right answer is to discard the least significant bits, not just throw up your hands. A more acceptable degradation would have been to say "the Pantone colours have been replaced with approximations matches in CMYK/RGB/whatever. If you save the file again, the Pantone data is stripped out."
  - haneefmubarak 4y ago
    > A more acceptable degradation would have been to say "the Pantone colours have been replaced with approximations matches in CMYK/RGB/whatever. If you save the file again, the Pantone data is stripped out." I don't quite think Adobe would be allowed to do that though. If what Adobe was previously licensing on your behalf was the translations from Pantone codes to RGB/CMYK and the files saved with Pantone colors only have Pantone codes, then the best you could do is list the missing colors and ask the user to manually substitute in color choices from available color spaces for each missing color.
brudgers 4y ago
Pantone formulates, tests and manufacturers bespoke pigments and dyes, then makes the available for purchase. The creator does have experience producing physical paints and pigments Unless the creator can overnight formulated inks to my print shop, it is not a practical alternative to Pantone, because Pantone’s business is selling consistency in markets where consistency matters. I am not saying it is not a nice piece of work, but it is only applicable where consistency doesn’t matter very much…and though that is most of the time for most people regarding most things, what you get correlates with what you pay for.
- tln 4y ago
  I think the idea is the palette contains the same colors. So if I have a file that was using some spot colors such as PANTONE 576 C, I can sub those colors for TEMPLETONE+ 576 C, which look the same on screen. When I send that to your print shop you could presumably do the reverse process, then print with the same inks you did last week. Everyone is happy, except for PANTONE.
  - anikom15 4y ago
    Print shops can’t just magically replicate any on-screen color on print, even if the print color is defined by some paint formula. There are too many variations involved. There has to be process for calibrating the equipment and accounting for variation in the materials to get a proper match. You still need a company like Pantone to provide that, even if you want to use a slightly different print color that looks the same as another Pantone color on-screen.
    - nerdponx 4y ago
      My point is that nobody is debating this! This is entirely about having an "unencumbered" set of RGB approximations to those same colors. When you send your design to the printer or whatever, you still need to specify the actual Pantone colors.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      True, which is why Pantone should be happy even if you don't pay the subscription fee, because they're still going to be used plenty. Making it harder to describe your product in terms of Pantone colors hurts them, which is the dumbest part of this situation.

kabes 4y ago

> Pantone does provide official RGB approximations, but apparently you can't use them in an Adobe product anymore This is wrong, you can still use the rgb approximations.

donatj 4y ago
Sure, you can still use the colors, but they're removing the picker for them.
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  They are also making it so anything that previously had the colour selected using the picker is set to black unless you pay them a licensing fee. There is obviously value in Pantone and what they do but the digital representation of Pantone's colours should be treated the same way APIs are.
Bjartr 4y ago
But existing uses of Pantone colors will be appearing as black, not their RGB approximations, unless you pay $21/mo. from November on in Adobe products.
- Angostura 4y ago
  What a ludicrous business decision
  - genmud 4y ago
    Having been on the receiving end of things like this, it’s likely outside Adobes hands. I had a product where they changed licensing to a revenue sharing model, asking for 10% vs a flat fee. Problem was, only like 3-4 customers out of hundreds were using the licensed feature. Long story short, it made it unsustainable and we quickly dropped the technology.

mikeryan 4y ago

If using Pantone compatible colors in Adobe is necessary for your business you can license the color palette for use in Adobe products and pay the $15 a month for it. Cost of doing business.

hakfoo 4y ago
The problem is that it wasn't a cost of doing business last month. So if someone used what was an ordinary feature in their files, they can no longer open them in any usable manner-- apparently it maps everything to black. Okay, Adobe and Pantone have decided to do a bold business decision that breaks existing files. That's their perogative. But in terms of minimizing bridge burning, their goal should be to fail tactfully and with as little lossage as possible. For a comparable, if you loaded a 12-bit-per-channel high-dynamic-range file in a software stack that only supported 8 bits per channel, the right answer is to discard the least significant bits, not just throw up your hands. A more acceptable degradation would have been to say "the Pantone colours have been replaced with approximations matches in CMYK/RGB/whatever. If you save the file again, the Pantone data is stripped out."
- haneefmubarak 4y ago
  > A more acceptable degradation would have been to say "the Pantone colours have been replaced with approximations matches in CMYK/RGB/whatever. If you save the file again, the Pantone data is stripped out." I don't quite think Adobe would be allowed to do that though. If what Adobe was previously licensing on your behalf was the translations from Pantone codes to RGB/CMYK and the files saved with Pantone colors only have Pantone codes, then the best you could do is list the missing colors and ask the user to manually substitute in color choices from available color spaces for each missing color.

brudgers 4y ago

Pantone formulates, tests and manufacturers bespoke pigments and dyes, then makes the available for purchase. The creator does have experience producing physical paints and pigments Unless the creator can overnight formulated inks to my print shop, it is not a practical alternative to Pantone, because Pantone’s business is selling consistency in markets where consistency matters. I am not saying it is not a nice piece of work, but it is only applicable where consistency doesn’t matter very much…and though that is most of the time for most people regarding most things, what you get correlates with what you pay for.

tln 4y ago
I think the idea is the palette contains the same colors. So if I have a file that was using some spot colors such as PANTONE 576 C, I can sub those colors for TEMPLETONE+ 576 C, which look the same on screen. When I send that to your print shop you could presumably do the reverse process, then print with the same inks you did last week. Everyone is happy, except for PANTONE.
- anikom15 4y ago
  Print shops can’t just magically replicate any on-screen color on print, even if the print color is defined by some paint formula. There are too many variations involved. There has to be process for calibrating the equipment and accounting for variation in the materials to get a proper match. You still need a company like Pantone to provide that, even if you want to use a slightly different print color that looks the same as another Pantone color on-screen.
  - nerdponx 4y ago
    My point is that nobody is debating this! This is entirely about having an "unencumbered" set of RGB approximations to those same colors. When you send your design to the printer or whatever, you still need to specify the actual Pantone colors.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    True, which is why Pantone should be happy even if you don't pay the subscription fee, because they're still going to be used plenty. Making it harder to describe your product in terms of Pantone colors hurts them, which is the dumbest part of this situation.