In order to communicate colors effectively, either CMYK or Pantone color systems are used for branded printing. Let’s check out the difference and which one is better.
What Is CMYK
CMYK is also known as cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. It also refers to four primary pigment colors used in four-color process printing, working pretty much just like the inkjet printers found in homes or offices. CMYK, also known as four-color process, is the most common color mode used in commercial printing.
If you are printing a photograph or artwork with lots of color or gradients, this is the color mode you should select in Photoshop or whichever design software you are using.
Pantone vs CMYK Colors
CMYK is identical to the way most large offset printers are set up, using a process called halftoning, where an image or artwork is split up into these four base colors, a printing plate is made for each, and as the paper passes through the press, each color is laid down on top of the next, resulting in a full-color image.
What Is Pantone
Pantone, also known as spot colors, uses a highly precise mix of ink to create an exact color. Essentially, predetermined colors are used to match a certain color, which is why it’s also known as PMS, the Pantone Matching System.
PMS is a proprietary color system developed in 1962, whose goal was to standardize color, allowing commercial printers, advertisers, and manufacturers to create perfect color consistency across all media.
Pantone colors are proprietary colors owned by X-Rite, which are mixed by combining 14 base pigments in various amounts. Pantone also offers specialty colors like neons, fluorescents, pastels, and metallics. Pantone is a brand name for a set of colors used for printing on paper and all kinds of other surfaces, used almost universally throughout the world.
If you use a Pantone color to specify a red ink in your art file, a factory on the other side of the world will print the red you’re expecting, because they’ll have the Pantone formulas to make that particular red ink. Pantone guides have numbers that are either a three-digit or four-digit number followed by a C, which stands for coated or shiny paper, or a U for uncoated paper.
The Key Difference: Accuracy vs. Cost
The major difference between CMYK and Pantone printing is the level of accuracy. The Pantone printing method is more consistent and can achieve up to 95% color accuracy once seen on a digital design stage. However, it costs more compared with CMYK print, especially with a smaller printing quantity.
It’s possible to have smaller print jobs with CMYK, whereas printing with Pantone requires a lot more manpower, since the machine has to be prepped for each run and cleaned thoroughly afterward. Therefore, it’s more cost-effective to run larger print jobs with Pantone printing methods.
When to Use Each One
If you wish to have consistent printing on your brand or logo, like a corporate identity, it’s suggested to go with the Pantone printing system. However, if printing that exact color is not your main concern, or you generally have smaller printing quantities, you can go with regular CMYK prints to save money.
PMS colors should be used when you need perfectly accurate or matched color, like the UPS brown, or when you just want to ensure a bright, solid, stunning color, as many lighter colors can appear dull when printed in a four-color process.
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Why Printed Colors Never Match Your Screen Exactly
The CMYK color you see on your screen will never match exactly the physically printed color because your screen is backlit, so colors will always appear brighter or more vibrant on screen. RGB (red, green, blue) is the color space used for images that appear on a lighted screen, and it’s an additive color model, meaning that when all three colors are added at 100%, you get white.
RGB has more colors than CMYK, so it might seem like a good idea to use the broadest gamut possible. But if something is designed with neon bright lime greens and magentas, there’s a good chance it won’t reproduce like that in the real world, and converting from RGB to CMYK can lose the colors’ brilliance.
Setting Up Logo and Packaging Files Correctly
A logo file should use no more than a few Pantone colors, with each color chosen from the Pantone Solid Coated or Uncoated swatch library: coated for a shiny look, uncoated for a matte look.
Bringing Pantone colors into a CMYK file results in extra colors sitting alongside the four CMYK colors, turning what should be a four-color job into a seven-color job, which is a much more expensive job to print, since most jobs are four-color, two-color, or one-color.