pantone and cmyk and going bonkers

Illustrator showing different values for one pantone

[louponne]

Arg! Help!

I have set an object in an Illustrator file to a certain Pantone. If I open up the color in the color tab, I get one cmyk setting. But if I make a rectangle, and set it to that pantone, and then open up the color in the tools palette, I get another different cmyk setting. What's going on?

arg!

[hakre]

hi louponne,

where did you get the color of the second path (rect) from? did you use the picker, swatches or what?

[louponne]

I made a rectangle, and then clicked on the swatch that was normally set to a pantone color. But then if I double-click on the color in the tools palette, I get different cmyk values.?

[hakre]

i can't find any pantone swatch palette in illustrator. is it supplied or do you have to add it first?

[louponne]

Yes, you have to open them. Sorry, I'm using a French version , but click on the menu to left of help, and then at the bottom, you have libraries of swatches.

[hakre]

ah, i see. ok, found them.

after applying a color, i could checkout the values (here PANTONE 8901 C):

C: 21,96
M: 60,39
Y: 66,27
K: 8,24

if then doubleclick on the color pad beneath the tools (fore- and background color) and the picker opens, all these values are rounded:

C: 22
M: 60
Y: 66
K: 8

so that's maybe why the color is changed a bit. maybe this is why?

[louponne]

Nope, in my example they're way off. Thanks anyway!

[bateman_ap]

Not really a answer to your problem (in relation to that have you checked you are using the same pantone types, ie they are both coated, uncoated etc) but you should only use Pantone when you have a job that needs spot colours. As you prob know Pantone colours when printed CMYK are totally different and cause all sorts of problems when a client sees them in the print job and suddenly exclaims "But this looks nothing like the swatch, I'm not paying!"

If you are using a swatch reference get one that has 2 versions along side, one the pantone and also one that shows the CMYK equivalent. The difference is quite shocking! And of course if you are working for web work and not print you should only be using RGB.

[louponne]

Thanks, but yes, I know about pantone/cmyk/rvb - what I'm trying to understand is this little glitch in Illustrator.