Pantone colors look muted

[mayakutis]

Hello, I need some help. I'm having trouble with Pantone colors in Illustrator CC. I'm working off of a Pantone Color Guide (the physical swatch book) to find the color I need. Specifically, I am using Pantone 607C (a light yellow color). When I select that color in Illustrator CC, the color looks very muted and dull. It should have more yellow in it. It's not just my computer screen. We took the file to print and sure enough the print was dull and muted and did not match up to the swatch. I tried working in different color modes, used overprint preview, etc. Still having trouble. Having a similar problem in CorelDraw. Clearly I am missing something. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Monika Gause]

Is your color management set up appropriately?

[mayakutis]

Are you referring to the print settings when going to print? We outsourced the printing for this item (it was a vinyl banner). I assume the printer let the application manage the colors but I don't know for sure. Normally we just eyeball the color we want on screen and it prints fine, but in this case we needed it to be really specific.

[Monika Gause]

I'm referring to both the general color management settings in the application and the settings when creating the PDF.

Both need to be made appropriately for the output.

You might want to watch this:

Color Management Fundamentals

(paid training)

[mayakutis]

As far as I can tell, yes. (Can't watch the vid because I'm not a paid Lynda subscriber, but I've done my research elsewhere).

I have my color settings set to Adobe RGB (1998) and also tried other settings just to be sure. Made no difference. Made sure there was no color conversion when saving to pdf, etc.

[Theresa J]

Your Adobe RGB (1998) setting isn't going to have any impact on your document because it is CMYK. What is your CMYK color setting? The Pantone color swatch is going to convert to a CMYK color mix based on your color settings.

Ask your printer these questions.

Do they prefer an RGB file or a CMYK one?

Does their RIP have a built in Pantone Library? If not can they provide you a color mix for the Pantone color, or can they correct the color on their end to make sure it prints right?

Without color management in place, what you see on your monitor is not going to match what gets printed. A good printer will be able to match Pantone colors in your file regardless of what it looks like to you.

[jdanek]

"We outsourced the printing for this item (it was a vinyl banner). I assume the printer let the application manage the colors..."

Vinyl banners use solid vinyl adhesive that is cut, then adhered to the banner's substrate.  If you specify and apply a spot color to your file, it ( the color ) will ultimately depend on the actual vinyl color and whether the sign shop is able to match your file's spot color.  If you want to simulate what that Yellow will look like, then you need to convert a copy of your file to process color ( unless you have a RIP that can convert the spot Yellow to process ), then print a simulation proof.  In any case, not sure I would use "Let application manage color".

[CHMprepress]

Like Ton said if you look this color up it is like it is on you screen dump:

Dropbox - Screen Shot 2018-03-07 at 10.20.26.pdf

Maybe you need to get a other color if you want it more yellow, or you make the color yourself if you have something specific in mind.

[Ton Frederiks]

If I compare your color with the color on the Pantone website, they look almost identical muted and dull.

[Mariam Hovhannesyan]

Try to open in another computer, maybe the problem is in your display color mode

[mayakutis]

Thanks so much for all the feedback! And thanks for the screencap, CHM.

I'm pretty sure my problem is twofold - 1: my monitor isn't calibrated correctly (as was suggested) which I knew, but even looking at the swatch on 2 other monitors didn't make much difference. However, when I view it on my phone is looks more yellow and closer to what I was originally expecting. Go figure.

2: The printer isn't able to print as close to the pantone as we thought. We all know this happens and their output can change as they make adjustments to their machines. I'm going to have them print some swatches for me so we can get a better idea of what color(s) we need to request from them.

Thanks, all!