Adobe Illustrator comes loaded with several Pantone swatch palettes to choose from. The Pantone Matching System, often shortened to PMS colors, have numbers that represent different shades. The system is designed to match colors on your screen with the colors in your final printed piece. Use Illustrator's settings to get the most out of your Pantone color swatches.
Pantone Palette Choices
- Before you change any Illustrator settings, choose the proper Pantone color panel for your job. Check your printer manual if you aren't sure which menu to use. The Pantone inks are designed to work with different paper types, so the same color number in an uncoated panel might look different on your screen than the number in a coated or metallic panel. That's because the ink absorbs into paper at different rates -- coated, or glossy, paper makes Pantone inks brighter, while uncoated, or matte, paper soaks more ink and makes the ink appear duller. Some Pantone panel choices include solid coated, solid uncoated, pastel coated, metallic coated, process coated and solid matte.
Swatch Display
- When you select Pantone colors in your Illustrator file they automatically appear in your Swatches panel. Change the display setting on the Swatch panel to help you see your Pantone color swatches better by clicking on the arrow for the panel menu and changing the view option to one of the thumbnail or list views. To help you focus on the Pantone colors you chose, select "Select All Unused" from the panel menu and delete all unused colors from the Swatch panel.
Lab Values
- Pantone colors in Illustrator are defined with Lab values. These values are designed to give you the best possible color match on your printed pieces. However, they are not always backward-compatible with previous versions of Illustrator. If you need to create an image that might be opened by a previous version of Illustrator, change the output setting from Lab value to CMYK. Under the Swatches panel menu, choose "Use CMYK Values From The Manufacturer’s Process Book" to change from Illustrator's default Lab value output.
Create Pantone Swatch Library
- Although Illustrator comes with built-in Pantone libraries, set up your own to keep often-used colors handy or to keep the names of the Pantone colors consistent with other programs, such as Adobe InDesign. Add the Pantone colors you need into your Swatches panel and then delete all other color swatches from the panel. In the Swatches panel menu, choose "Save Swatch Library."
