[brudgers]

Pantone formulates, tests and manufacturers bespoke pigments and dyes, then makes the available for purchase.

The creator does have experience producing physical paints and pigments

Unless the creator can overnight formulated inks to my print shop, it is not a practical alternative to Pantone, because Pantone’s business is selling consistency in markets where consistency matters.

I am not saying it is not a nice piece of work, but it is only applicable where consistency doesn’t matter very much…and though that is most of the time for most people regarding most things, what you get correlates with what you pay for.

[tln]

I think the idea is the palette contains the same colors.

So if I have a file that was using some spot colors such as PANTONE 576 C, I can sub those colors for TEMPLETONE+ 576 C, which look the same on screen.

When I send that to your print shop you could presumably do the reverse process, then print with the same inks you did last week. Everyone is happy, except for PANTONE.

[anikom15]

Print shops can’t just magically replicate any on-screen color on print, even if the print color is defined by some paint formula. There are too many variations involved. There has to be process for calibrating the equipment and accounting for variation in the materials to get a proper match. You still need a company like Pantone to provide that, even if you want to use a slightly different print color that looks the same as another Pantone color on-screen.

[nerdponx]

My point is that nobody is debating this! This is entirely about having an "unencumbered" set of RGB approximations to those same colors. When you send your design to the printer or whatever, you still need to specify the actual Pantone colors.

[Dylan16807]

True, which is why Pantone should be happy even if you don't pay the subscription fee, because they're still going to be used plenty.

Making it harder to describe your product in terms of Pantone colors hurts them, which is the dumbest part of this situation.

[capableweb]

> True, which is why Pantone should be happy even if you don't pay the subscription fee, because they're still going to be used plenty.

That doesn't sound right. Pantone is a for-profit company who doesn't get paid unless you pay something to them. They do not get any money from you just using anything Pantone.

If Pantone was a non-profit/FOSS project then sure, they would be happy for any type of usage. But they're not, so not sure why they should be happy if people are not paying.

[ehvatum]

> But they're not, so not sure why they should be happy if people are not paying.

Because of this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33389848 your use of Pantone colors for free causes your print shop to spend huge sums on Pantone goods and services.

[tln]

Sure, I didn't suggest otherwise.

FWIW I don't think this "freetone" library is very practical. Pros who need it will pay the $15/mo to pantone, in addition to the $99/mo they pay to Adobe.

[brudgers]

I don’t own a print shop.

By “my print shop” I meant one I am in a business relationship with.

[madeofpalk]

Pantone also sells a list of rgb colors for photoshop. This is what this is replacing https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/illustrator/kb/pantone-plus.html

[amelius]

Can't we just represent colors using the underlying physics? Like how ray tracers represent them?

[someweirdperson]

Description of the spectrum? That would provide different descriptions for what looks the same. Also, it would require a description of the spectrum of the light source lighting the colored surface.

But it would be great. Two differently produced paints would look the same under all lighting conditions.

[amelius]

That's not entirely true. Nonlinear effects exist. E.g. fluorescence can cause emission of one light frequency after being hit with another.

Regardless of that, you could also make a physical model of the human retina, and use that to remove any parts from the model that you think are redundant.

Also, the tools that Pantone uses to map colors have some kind of built-in physical model already, I suppose (not a Pantone expert obviously).