Tool for combining/subtracting PMS colors?
I am looking for a website or software for working with pms colors, not sure if it exists or is even possible. The idea is to take 1 pantone color and “subtract” another pms color to get the desired final color. In other words, print with a bottom color, print with a top color, and where they overlap would be the correct final color while still allowing both individual colors to show where they do not overlap. Anyone know of such a tool or method for finding the correct colors in this scenario?
Have a look at the Jean Berte process of printing with transparent water colour ink, it would not be Pms colours but in theory you could use transparent inks. There was an issue of The Printing Historical Society (UK) that had a comprehensive article on the subject.( New Series No. 15 2010)
Working with overprints is tricky. Any image editing software can show you an estimate of the color, but you’re unlikely to have two individual Pantone colors that perfectly match a 3rd Pantone when overprinted. The amount of ink on press and printed density will affect the end result as well.
I don’t know of any software that is going to calculate this for you. Best case scenario is make sure your software (Illustrator, acrobat, Art Pro +, numerous free programs) is set to overprint preview. You can set your two overprint colors to Pantone swatch’s, and take a CMYK eye dropper reading of the overprint, compare that to a Pantone bridge book and see where you are at. I believe there may be some tools to automatically compare an eye dropper reading to closest Pantone, but I’m not positive.
Brent