Filed under: Graphic Design, App Review
Pantone offers color libraries for iPhone, mostly
While it's been in the App Store for the last few days, Pantone is officially launching its color discovery and management app for iPhone today, called myPANTONE.
The Pantone Matching System, among other Pantone products, is the indispensable color system for printers and graphic designers, and it offers a wider gamut of color than traditional process color printing. myPANTONE lets iPhone and iPod touch users discover new and interesting Pantone color combinations, share them, and create palette files suitable for importing in desktop applications.
You can start one of two ways: You can scrub through one of Pantone's color sets, including PMS coated, uncoated and matte colors, Goe, Pastels, and Fashion + Home. You can then drag individual chips into an area below the fanbook display, and build a palette of five colors. You can view each color full-screen, and add tags to colors, too.
Alternatively, you can take a picture with your iPhone (or select an image from Pictures on your iPod touch) and build a palette from the colors in that image.
myPANTONE exports HTML colors and .ase files (suitable for importing in Adobe CS products). You can also share palettes directly with other myPANTONE users nearby, and also upload them to the mypantone.com website (annoying sound warning), which is very similar to Adobe's Kuler (though it uses Pantone swatches, naturally).
This is all well and good, of course, but for the technical color professional? Meh.
While myPANTONE contains on-board color data in RGB and L*a*b* formats, in a disappointing omission, it does not offer CMYK conversion data (available in Pantone's Color Bridge product). Having an app like this as a quick process build lookup tool would have been invaluable.
In an interview with Andy Hatkoff, Pantone's VP of technical licensing, the company was concerned that including CMYK data while displaying RGB colors on the iPhone's screen would be misleading. Personally, I think people who would spend $10 on an app like this would appreciate having the CMYK values on-board. Hatkoff said that the company may look at offering CMYK data in either an update to myPANTONE or a separate application.
Hatkoff said that the app is purely a "directional and inspirational tool" and isn't suitable for color matching in a production environment. Of course, any designer will tell you that colors displayed on an LCD screen will never look the same as colors on a page, because of the physical difference between emitted and reflected light. A word of caution to graphic designers that have clients with iPhones: Expect your client to show up at your next press check with this app. Plan to bill at least an hour explaining why this app won't help them match color on press.
myPANTONE is a little spendy, at $9.99, so if you're looking for a simple color blending tool, there are many cheaper ones out there (iTunes link). Even so, if you're looking a quick way to assemble Pantone swatches into a small palette, and send it to yourself or a friend, then this app is for you. If you're a printing professional looking for a digital version of your printed Pantone color guides, then you'll be disappointed.
myPANTONE is available in the App Store.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jason said 11:27AM on 9-21-2009
This app would be a fun little toy, nothing more, nothing less, but only if it were free.
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polvo said 11:30AM on 9-21-2009
$10 and no CMYK. Not worth it.
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aaron said 11:42AM on 9-21-2009
Seriously. That makes it useless, even for free.
Tom Waterhouse said 11:35AM on 9-21-2009
I agree with their point about displaying CMYK colours on RGB screens though. It could cause some confusion...
...if it were free and anyone could download it.
But at that price it'll only be a handful of designs who get it - all of which will understand colour values properly, I'm sure.
I have a sneaking suspicion that someone else will make a copycat cheaper/free version.
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Pork Rind said 11:39AM on 9-21-2009
If you've got the L*a*b* values, why in the world would you want the CMYK numbers? There are so many different CMYK colorspaces out there and Pantone's numbers can only be accurate for a small subset of those spaces. In my experience, they're really accurate for _none_ of them. Just leave the L*a*b* values in place and let your application separate into CMYK using the correct output profile at the time of output. If you just _have_ to see CMYK numbers, at least do a conversion for your specific output conditions instead of using the generic Pantone numbers.
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Rick Maddy said 11:52AM on 9-21-2009
Now I know why they refused to license their colors to me for my Palettes iPhone app.
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pumpkinheadzero said 12:30PM on 9-21-2009
Yeah, this is pretty useless to me without CMYK values. I understand that it wouldn't represent what the CMYK colors would truly look like, but to be able to convert Pantone colors to CMYK would be helpful. I hardly use RGB colors.
I keep waiting for Palettes to go on sale. In my opinion, $9.99 is just too much.
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Rick Maddy said 2:56PM on 9-21-2009
I'd like your honest opinion about why you think Palettes is too expensive at $10. I've spent 100's of hours developing and improving Palettes. It has a huge feature list. I've had plenty of customers tell me it was worth way more than $10. BTW - I'll be putting out an update this fall and it will be on sale then.
pumpkinheadzero said 4:02PM on 9-21-2009
It's not that I think Palettes is not worth 9.99. I just have a hard time paying 9.99 or higher for an app. It's not the app at all. It's just me. From reading about Palettes, it looks like a great utility. So I'm not knocking it. If I offended you, I apologize. It wasn't my intention at all. I guess I didn't correctly word what I said.
Rick Maddy said 4:41PM on 9-21-2009
No offense taken. I was honestly curious about you thoughts of the price. Thanks for answering.
Simon said 12:51PM on 9-21-2009
Interface looks great. Together with kuler sync it would be perfect. But 10$ is just too much!
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Unknown said 3:46PM on 9-21-2009
Be very careful specifying Pantone colors when you are not using Pantone inks. Read :
http://qualityinprint.blogspot.com/search/label/Pantone
Halfway down, read this :
" The specific colors in the library are based on ink mixing formulae - not target CIEL*a*b* color values. The CIEL*a*b* color values included with some applications, e.g. Adobe Photoshop, are only included as a courtesy to assist with conversion to CMYK – they are not the target for the color itself. "
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3.0 Pissed said 4:12PM on 9-21-2009
Code Line introduced nearly this exact thing ONE YEAR AGO.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=292243338&mt=8
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Etienne Jacquemart said 4:26PM on 9-21-2009
They could simply simulate the reduced CMYK color space like Photoshop does. Without this feature, it's almost useless. More than 90% of documents are printed in CMYK.
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