Is it just more printer’s lingo that the nerds use to totally confuse us?
Glaze!
Well, the short answer is YES!
But… not really.
PMS is short for (no, not what you’re thinking) Pantone Matching System.
The Pantone Matching System is a colour mixing and matching system that 99% of all printing companies throughout the world use.
The First Book
A Pantone book is a book of colour swatches very similar to a paint colour book and each page has a number of varying shades of the same colour on it, running from lightest at the top to darkest at the bottom.
Each individual colour has a unique ‘PMS’ number.
Printing a document using PMS colours is referred to, by those in the know (like me), as spot colour printing. The other method of printing colour is four colour process printing.
All of these colours, apart from a handful that actually have names, are referred to as PMS colours and they all have a unique number printed below each colour swatch.
So when printers refer to a colour from the PMS book, it’s referred to as PMS 281 (for example)
The Mid-Tone Colours
The centre swatch of each page is, what I refer to as, the mid-tone colour.
By that I mean that you add white to it to achieve a lighter shade of the same colour and you add black to achieve a darker shade of the same colour.
When someone wants some printing done, they may quote the PMS number that’s to be matched or alternatively, they may ask the printer to match a sample colour.
In the later situation, the printer will whip out his trusty PMS book and try to match the colour as close as possible.
The Sections
The Pantone book is made up of two sections with each section being identical colours only one section is printed on a coated stock being gloss art paper, and the second section printed on an uncoated stock such as 120gsm offset (bond).
There’s a good reason for this, it’s just that I don’t know what it is!!
Just kidding.
Ink behaves differently when printed on coated stock than it does when printed on an uncoated stock.
When ink dries on coated stock it does so by oxidisation.
That is, it sits on the sealed surface, without soaking in, and dries. Much the same as water dries on a stainless steel sink.
However ink dries on uncoated stock by absorption, much like a glass of beer would dry when poured over your jeans.
The upshot of all this is that the same PMS colour looks very different when printed on different stocks so to offer some sort of indication, Pantone books offer the same colours printed on two types of stock.
The Second Book
There is another type of PMS book that has the same range of colours as the traditional PMS book but has two colour swatches printed along each.
One swatch is identical to the traditional PMS book and the other is the same PMS number as it would appear after being converted to the four process colours and printed by that same process.
The variation between some of the colours using the different printing process is substantial.
Also, the colours will vary from the PMS book depending what stock that it’s being printed on.
Ink is transparent and the final colour is greatly affected by not only the colour of the stock but also the surface of the paper.
So, there you have it.
Choosing an ink colour may not be as simple as it seems. Trying to match the same ink colour over varying stocks can be a nightmare for the printer.
In many situations he may need to actually mix different ink colours so they appear the same when printed on varying stocks.
This is both time consuming and costly for all concerned, so it may be worthwhile talking to your printer before you chose ink colours & paper stocks.
Click here to learn more about 4 Colour Process Printing
Peter Kirkham is a Qualified Printing Trade Specialist and Commercial Printing Broker with Print Acumen Pty Ltd in Perth, Western Australia.
With over 40 years of industry experience, Peter provides a wonderfull collection of insider tips & proven methods that will save you a substantial amount of money & time on company printing. His FREE guide, Printing Secrets Exposed is freely available for everyone to download.
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