What are CMYK color and Pantone color different

When we talk about color printing, you may hear Pantone colors or CMYK colors, but there is a difference between the two, and that’s about how to get best packaging way for yours.

Now, followed Forests Packaging Group to learn more about Pantone printing and CMYK printing.

We know color consistency is a key for brand identity, so printed colors of package becomes very important, a better understand CMYK printing and Pantone printing that will help you to choose the right packaging printing.

CMYK Colors

CMYK is one of popular and common printing colors in our daily life, the mostly used home printers and commercial printers, such as magazines and newspapers, they are printing by CMYK color. CMYK, commonly known as "four-color printing", as its name suggests, they used four colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (The K stands for the “Key” color, which is typically black ink). Printer defined four separate plates, through dot composition a complete pattern, such as below picture.

CMYK printing is based on setting different ratios of four colors to achieve a complete pattern. However, the downside is color consistency. The CMYK value may look different in production depending on printers.

Pantone Colors

Pantone is a company that specializes in products that accommodate color matching, called the Pantone Matching System, or PMS for short.

PMS includes more 1000 various colors, each color linked a particular sample or number, and therefore we call it spot color, sometimes called solid color.

It is worth mentioning that printing in Pantone will always produce sharp, consistent colors, because of each color requires its own ink and screen. Therefore Pantone printing is more expensive than CMYK printing.

CMYK Colors vs Pantone Colors

The main difference between CMYK and Pantone printing is the level of accuracy. The Pantone color system is more consistent and able to produce colors closer in shade to the ones seen in the digital design stage. However, in most cases, printing Pantone/spot color can be more costly than CMYK, especially if the print job is small. With CMYK, it’s easier to bundle different jobs together than it is with Pantone. For consistent color matching in branding and logos, Pantone is a better choice. For print jobs where exact color isn’t a concern, CMYK is the best choice. It all depends on the nature of the print job and your budgetary constraints.

CMYK is best suited for:

l  Photo printing and photorealistic imagery

l  Multicolor images

l  Collateral print

l  Home printing

l  When budget is concern

Pantone is best suited for:

l  Screen printing

l  Textile/product manufacturing

l  When color accuracy is important

l  Precise color matching for branding and logos

l  Vibrant hues and darker tones

l  Special finishes including fluorescent and metallic colures

If you want to learn more about printing knowledge, click correspond icon jump to page, and Forests Packaging Group has 35 years packaging experience, accept wholesale and custom, submit the form to get tailor-made free quotes.

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