Who Own Da Colors?

[The_Admiral]

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As of now, widely used Adobe apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign will no longer support Pantone-owned colors for free, and those wishing for those colors to appear in their saved files will need to pay for a separate license.

. . .

 

The removal of Pantone’s colors from Adobe’s software was meant to happen March 31 this year, but that date came and went. It was then due for August 16, then August 31. However, this month, people are noticing the effects, reporting issues with creations using Pantone’s spot colors. And the solution? It’s an Adobe plug-in to “minimize workflow disruption and to provide the updated libraries to the Adobe Creative Cloud users.” Which, of course, costs $15 a month. It’s Netflix, but for coloring in!

 

However, Pantone still states in its out-of-date FAQ that, “This update will have minimal impact on a designer’s workflow. Existing Creative Cloud files and documents containing Pantone Color references will keep those color identities and information.” Yet today, people are reporting that their Photoshop is informing them, “This file has Pantone colors that have been removed and replaced with black due to changes in Pantone’s licensing with Adobe.”

 

. . . 

 

We, as a species, are in a very interesting time when it comes to so-called “Intellectual Property.” As rules applying to physical objects were poorly imposed on digital items, usually controlled by those with the most money to spend and lose, we’ve seen this sort of nonsense spread from music to movies to digital art, and now the very colors they’re made from themselves. And it always seems to end in our having to pay even more money.

 

https://kotaku.com/photoshop-pantone-color-plugin-adobe-creative-cloud-1849714742

[burgundy]

Pantone can go fk themselves.

 

A free alternative has already been made:

https://www.culturehustleusa.com/products/freetone

[AdobeDesignBG]

The worst thing about this is that all of the pantone colors turn black now when you open the file.

[tBBP]

I'm glad I got myself used to working in process RGB and hexcode colors a couple months back! That said, I'm half-afraid to open all my old files from waaayyyy back in the day now...I do have an old PMS library saved on my system; maybe I'll try to reimport those if my files do go black.

 

All that said, this switch-up really only affects physical/print items, such as thread/textile and paper products. Those types of products are where Pantone's proprietary standardized ink-matching formulas come into play. For digital/web use, this will have no effect (if one learns to work ik hex/RGB). 

 

Still though, this is yet another example of capitalism at its finest. I think Pantone may also be double-dipping on this, since they already charge printers for their formulated ink mixes...and now they'll be charging the front-end designer for access to those same formulas in the digital space? (Granted, unless you're working for a major brand like a pro sports team or big conglomerate that really takes their branding seriously, this probably won't mean much.) But as even this little big could open the gateway for something bigger (read: more expensive) down the road, it's worth following how this progresses...

[slapshot]

Thought Pantone stated legacy files (or older files created with Pantone spot colors) won't be affected - you just won't be able to add their colors to new files or palettes.