Pantone Colours - Recolour Entire Document Photoshop

[Georgia5F92]

Hi there, 

Is it possible to easily recolour a document against pantone values in Adobe Photoshop in just a coiple of clicks? From whay I see this might be easier in InDesign, but in Photoshop this would quite a manually laboursome task?

My new Xerox C400 spits out completely different shades to what I see in my document. Technically, for my printer, I am not after an EXACT shade match, I just want the printer to print a relative shade to what I see on the screen rather than completely random shades.

The suggestion I have been offered is Pantone colour palettes. 90% of my business files are from images I have paid a commercial license for, so recolouring them sounds laboursome? 

Grateful for your help! 

Thanks

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Not sure I understand what you mean. 

Are you talking actual Spot Colors or just colorizing RGB images? 

In the latter case a Solid Color Layer set to Blend Mode »Color« or a Gradient Map Adjustment Layer might be enough. 

If the printed images differ extremely from the on-screen image I suspect you may have to evaluate your print settings. 

[davescm]

You are tackling this from the wrong angle.

Photoshop is colour managed and uses ICC profiles, which means it will automatically translate the colours in the document to the numbers required to be sent to the output device (monitor/printer) in order that those colours are reproduced in screen or on print (within the limitations of the individual screen or printer).

To do this it needs:

a. A document profile - so that Photoshop knows what the individual pixel values in the document represent.

b. An accurate monitor profile set in the system. The must represent your monitor as currently adjusted and is best made with a hardware calibration device such as the i1Display. Remember that the monitor brightness/colour and contrast controls should not be touched after preparing such a profile or it will need to be remade.

c. A printer profile which represents the particular ink and paper combination you are using to print. For some printers and paper combinations the printer or paper manufacturers supply the ICC profile. If not they can be made by the user with  right profiling equipment and software - such as an i1Pro the Spectrophotometer and i1Profiler software.

Once a., b. and c are fulfilled then repeatable and predictable colour is easy.

Dave