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by pxx 1321 days ago
Your last sentence is just wrong. Pantone encodes thousands of colors. RGB/CMYK can encode references to as many (within-gamut, but you can also hack around this) colors as you want, typically millions, often billions.

Sure, you might not get Pantone 123 if somebody asks for #ffc72b. But if somebody says "use Pantone colors only" and specifies #ffc72b, you're going to get Pantone 123.
2 comments
chrisseaton 1321 days ago
> Your last sentence is just wrong.

How do you express metallic gold 817 using RGB.

Which of those components gives you how metallic it is? It's not even 1-1 as it depends on the paper used! Their own books show how lossy it is - they show the corresponding CMYK and it often barely matches.

> within-gamut

Ah so you already knew it wasn't true.

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pxx 1321 days ago
The cardinality of one set is much bigger than the cardinality of the other one. Pantone 871 is mapped to #84754e. If you see #84754e and also get the instruction "use only Pantone colors", it is not ambiguous!
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chrisseaton 1321 days ago
Someone needs a lookup table to map those back - that’s what you’re paying for. They aren’t claiming to ‘own’ the colours.
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pessimizer 1321 days ago
> within-gamut, but

How is this not question-begging?

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