Pantone Web equivalent

[sebastian_jovy@adobeforums.com]

I have selected a Pantone spot colour for my logo and now need to save the file as a jpeg which will be used for the web. How can I make sure that I get the closest match for the pantone color when I save my illustrator file as a jpeg.

Sebastian

[Jacob_Bugge@adobeforums.com]

Sebastian, just tick the right arrow in the colour palette and tick Web safe RGB before you save for web (SFW, CtrlShiftAltS).

When you select the logo, the colour palette switches back to Pantone.

[sebastian_jovy@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Jacob

I have a follow up question: If I convert the pantone color to websafe rgb, the color is ok on screen however when I then print it becomes much lighter. Is this just the nature of the beast or is there a way to have the color remain fairly consistent when someone later wants to print the logo from the web?

[Jacob_Bugge@adobeforums.com]

Sebastian, it may depend on how you print, and it may be the nature of the beast. But then the question may be: which beast? Pantones have equivalent CMYK values which are somewhat different in many cases, word processing and normal laser print work in RGB, printers normally work in CMYK, etc.

You may dive into the vast sea of colour management.
Here are a few sites to start with:

<http://www.computer-darkroom.com/>
<http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/color/a/pms_suffix.htm>

By the way, usually the opposite question is asked: how to avoid stealing logos etc.

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Jacob,

No need for 'web-safe' colours in this day and age - very few folks are
using 256 colour displays and in 16-bit, 24-bit or 32-bit displays, web-safe
is really meaningless.

Sebastian,

Depends upon WHAT printer you are printing to, WHAT application you are
printing from, and WHAT colour management controls you are applying.

[Jacob_Bugge@adobeforums.com]

Len,

As far as I can see:

a) There are 256x256x256 = about 16,8 million Web safe colours to choose between in Illy, the exact same number as in 24 bit colour depth, see my posts in the Golive topic ending with Jacob Bugge "Link back to Home Page" 5/20/04 3:04am </cgi-bin/webx?13@@.3bb42dc4/5>.

b) With the GIF format, up to 256 of these 16,8 million Web safe colours are chosen to represent the image; this has nothing to do with 256 colour displays. You may see it if you create a rectangle and make a gradient from 0 to 100% in grayscale (ending in 100% K), in Web safe RGB (for instance ending in FF Red (= 255 = 100% Red)), or in some Pantone colour. In each case you can Save for Web as GIF and get 256 steps from white to the deepest colour, shown in the Color Table. So with a simple gradient, GIF can actually yield 24 bit colour depth.

I use the Web safe RGB codes as an aid to fine tune the matching of background colour/image.

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Jacob,

There are 256x256x256 = about 16,8 million Web safe colours to choose
between in Illy, the exact same number as in 24 bit colour depth...




24-bit color is so named because each of the three color channels (R, G, and B) are assigned 8 bits with which to represent intensity values. 8 bits allows for 2 to the 8th power -- 256 -- discrete values. The number of possible combinations with three channels, each with 256 possible "steps" is, as you've calculated, about 16.8 million. Another way to get to 16.8 million is 2 to the 24th power.

You have not stumbled on some coincidence; you've merely expressed a tautology.

So with a simple gradient, GIF can actually yield 24 bit colour depth.




I'm not sure what point your trying to make in b), but this last statement would be easier to swallow (and more accurate) if you had stated, "With a simple gradient, using a base color that is 100 percent R, G, or B, GIF can yield results equivalent to an image format with 24-bit color depth."

It is absolutely not true of gradients with other base colors that are some combination of R, G, and/or B -- including black and Pantone colors. Your own test with simple gradients should be ample proof. In Illustrator or Photoshop, Save for Web will show severe banding on GIFs. (You can mask the problem to a certain degree by adding noise.) This is an expected result with an 8-bit indexed color format. JPEGs of the same gradients fare better because of 24-bit color depth.

=-= Harron =-=

[Jacob_Bugge@adobeforums.com]

Harron,

I agree with you. My post was an answer to the previous post by Len which (at least to me) seemed to imply that Web safe RGB was equivalent to 256 colour displays as used in older computers.

I would not recommend GIF for just any image, but in some cases it is not too bad, especially with closely related colours. As a reference you may look at the pages in <http://www.bugge.com> where every image is a GIF; the deviation from the original Illy file is greatest in the index page where the halo effect is more marked; I am not quite sure which I prefer.

I am considering a change from GIF to SVG, but I am uncertain about a couple of things, including the proportion of people who can actually view it.

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Jacob,

I understand better what you're trying to say, but, as usual, Len "The Machine" Hewitt is right.

Yes, FFFFFF hexadecimal represents 16.8 million decimal, but only 216 are considered "Web safe." When you select Web Safe RGB in the color palette flyout, Illustrator will try to keep you from selecting colors other than those 216.

You'll notice that in the Web Safe mode, the color sliders have six detents each (6x6x6=216). If you manually enter a hex value that results in a non-Web-safe color, you'll get a little cube at the left of the color palette. Click on that, and Illustrator will pick the closest Web safe color for you.

I think Len's point was simply that, today, it is generally unnecessary to use that feature.

=-= Harron =-=

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Jacob,

"Web-Safe" refers SPECIFICALLY to a 216 colour palette.

Those 216 colours map to the same values on both PC's and Mac's that have
their displays set to 256 colour display. The remaining 40 colours of the
256 colour palette are different colours on the Mac and PC platforms.

In the days when 256 colour displays were common, it was necessary to limit
your palettes to those 216 colours in order that both Mac and PC users saw
the same colours. For 16, 24 and 32-bit displays ALL colours (that do not
exceed the monitor's colour gamut) are "web-safe".

[Jacob_Bugge@adobeforums.com]

Harron, thank you for taking the time to explain. I had seen the detents, without actually knowing what they meant, and when I started I had misunderstood the manual description so I thought merely changing the colour palette VIEW to Web safe would make a difference when SFW (of course I know about the changing of colour mode etc); one of the things that fooled me was the fact that the actual web colour codes were shown. Now I know better.

Why The Machine? I believe it is a tale from good old days.

[Jacob_Bugge@adobeforums.com]

Len, I realized that when I read the post from Harron, so no more words about Web safe RGB, except the fact that you can use that colour view as an aid to fine tune background/image colours because it shows the actual colour codes.

Thank you for your patience.

Is The Machine thing a secret?

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Jacob,

That's just my little joke based on...

LenHewitt "Cant fix "Reading font" error" 5/17/04 12:41am </cgi-bin/webx?14@@.3bb41a3d/10>

It is intended with nothing but the highest respect.

#8~]

=-= Harron =-=

[Jacob_Bugge@adobeforums.com]

Harron,

I have seen the joke before in other threads, and it seems from the link that it goes way back. But as you can see I asked Len whether the story was a secret.

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Jacob,

>>whether the story was a secret.<<

No, it was just a comment someone made (over in Photoshop_Win, IIRC) after
someone asked me "How come you know all this stuff?".

The post following said something to the effect that I wasn't actually a
human at all but large database of suitable replies, to be pulled out and
posted as required.

[Jacob_Bugge@adobeforums.com]

Len, thank you for sharing the story. I suppose a joke like that had to appear sooner or later.

[Timothy_Foolery®@adobeforums.com]

Never explain your jokes.

-r_harvey