Pantone Spot Color Issue

Question

Hello, I am fairly new to Illustrator and I've run across a scary problem that I can't solve.

I am trying to update some of my company's old ai files right now, but the spot colors are not working right.

Here is a screen shot of the old ai file showing the color:

This red color is PANTONE+ 187 U that goes on the logo.

Now, when I drag this logo into a new ai file, the color gets muted. But the frustrating part is that Illustrator is still defining that muted red as PANTONE+ 187 U!

Here is a screen shot of the new ai file:

And what's even more confusing is that in the old ai file, the swatches panel shows that rich red, but when I open up the PANTONE+ Solid Uncoated color book, it shows the muted red (As shown here).

I've checked and both my documents are in CMYK, neither of them have overprint preview on, and they both have PANTONE+ color books. All of the other spot colors I've tested are the same hue in each document. The only thing I can think of that might be the cause is that the old file was made in CS5 vs my new document is CC 23.0.

Please help me, I am very lost!

Thanks so much,

Fletcher

Mario Arizmendi · Accepted Answer

Why are you using pantone 187 U ? (U means uncoated) wich is mate.

You should use Pantone 187 C (C means coated) wich is bright

Try this

1. Open your swatches libraries and load the Pantone Coated swatch, find 187 C and add it to your swatches panel

2. In the swatches panel, drag the pantone 187 C on top of the Pantone 187 U, nothing must be selected

3. then select both and merrge swatches as you can see in the picture attached

4. Done

Brad @ Roaring Mouse · Answer

If you are updating your files going forward, my main advice is to go with the "new normal", and use the latest Pantone color books, but also, make separate files for use in Spot and Process applications, using the "C" Coated for the former, and the Color Bridge CMYK for the latter. As has been mentioned before, the difference between the C and the U (oh, and historically there used to be an "M" for matte coated) is how they look on the screen to approximate how the 187 ink appears on different types of paper.

There used to be a need in some big corporations for their particular "corprate colour" to match closer across the different paper stocks by actually choosing different Pantones for each use and make THAT their graphic standard, e.g "Use 187 for coated stocks, but use 485 for uncoated stocks". This doesn't sound like your issue, so avoid using "U" going forward.

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