Originally published at: Adobe replacing old Pantone spot colors with black when you load files using them | Boing Boing
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This is why I stick with older, local versions of and FOSS alternatives to productivity and creation software. With SaaS versions you’re always at the mercy of nickel-and-diming corporations.
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You may think its nice or classy to have a gatekeeper that “protects” your precious brand name colors, but you better remember the gatekeepers want to be paid. And once they think they’re indispensable, they’ll remind you by leaving the gates closed until the tips improve.
So whose fault is it if you’re using their proprietary color space?
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GIMP (which I think is getting a new name) and Inkscape do me quite well for my amateur work.
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I saw this coming. There are workarounds, albeit time consuming ones. Worse case scenario you can preview the design file, screenshot it, and then color pick through the bits that Adobe won’t show properly and reengineer it from that. LOL!
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not supporting postscript fonts, pantone colors behind a paywall, all of this sucks. making it a lot more inconvenient and expensive to do my job. what are they gonna line item next, the pen tool? FU adobe.
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If you are working with printers you need some way to accurately specify spot colors and it’s difficult to do that if everyone isn’t working off a common set of swatch books. However as far as I’m concerned I gave Pantone their due when I bought the swatch books, as do the printers every time they use licensed Pantone inks. This subscription-based model just for color matching is bullshit.
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This won’t be as much of a pain in the ass as the fonts thing. That’s what is gonna give me the ulcer, because of one client’s primary font. It’s on every file going back so many years…
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Doesn’t it sometimes feel like we’re reconstructive surgeons or archeologists restoring ancient civilizations? Recreating logos from a pic that the client took with their cell phone that happens to also be blurry because they were riding a horse at the same time? Sometimes, no? All the time.
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I am not a designer, but I do create all of my own fancy-looking client portfolios, sell sheets and such. I also work with designers constantly and often find it quicker to get info to vendors directly rather than wait for the designer to respond. One of my favorite tools of all time is the Mac app Digital Color Meter. Recently I had to color match a custom bottle topper varnish PMS with the label values. My choice was to Cc the designer and the vendor and wait a week for him to respond or just fire up DCM and get him the info instantly. A week later the designer confirmed my selection (the value was kind of between two PMS colors), but by that time we were already setting a production date.
ETA: Again, not a designer, but one time I had to rebuild a client’s sales deck because he was a dumbass and it was a chaotic mess. While rebuilding I kept coming across a font called “Thai Handbrush Script” or some such weirdness. I called to ask what the hell was going on since it looked like Helvetica Neue Light. He was adamant that it was Thai… Whatever and became very annoyed when I continued to push him to contact the designer to send the original files so I could pick it apart. That was the day I learned that Western characters revert to a default font when a non-native characters are used. For years they had been using this font (no clue how it started) until I reformatted the entire thing. I still don’t think he understood when I tried to explain it to him and still seemed annoyed with me. 
He was fired shortly thereafter.
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I’m so very glad I don’t do the kind of professional work in Photoshop that requires interfacing with things like specific Pantone colors, but as mentioned this is exactly the kind of fuckery that is to be expected from SaaS and it continues to piss me off. Thankfully for those of us who don’t need to interface with the “latest and best” from Adobe there are wonderful alternatives like GIMP or as also mentioned just having years old versions of their licensed locally installed software.
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Krita is good, use that instead. #stallmanwasright
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Sigh, yes, a blurry cell phone pic, a Quark file from 1997, Publisher, or my all time fave “here, I build the brochure in excel, so I shouldn’t have to pay you to design anything, it’s done already, all you need to to is print it.” 
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What the actual fuck?
I never use PMS in Photoshop. Use it quite often in Indesign or with PDFs. I assume they will be doing the same BS?
This is dumb. Pantone makes their money from selling ink to printers. Make it harder to user their ink, some places are just going to CMYK it. (The already do in a lot of instances. Adherence to Pantone for even branding is less important for a lot things, as color calibration on presses is getting better and better.)
I believe from a printer standpoint, it doesn’t matter what the color is VISUALLY, when they do color separations the area with that ink is separated into a “black” on the film to make the plates. But it it will probably mess them up somehow.
I am sure my company would pay the subscription if they had to, but fuck is that $21/mo for each person? That is a lot of fucking money.
Can a 3rd party make a plug in that fixes the issue.
Grr - this whole thing irritates me. Adobe’s subscription based program already pisses me off. But my work pays for my access to it, so it hasn’t been an issue so far.
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You can add 3D tools to the list. No more quick renders in PS. Adobe now recommends subscribing to their Substance platform instead.
Of course, Adobe’s answer to all of this is to install an older version of the software. Not sure how PMS licensing affects that. Overall, my loyalty to both Adobe and Pantone can be summed up as “bite my ass”. I’m old enough to remember when Adobe’s InDesign sent the arrogant, obnoxious Quark to the grave. It’s time now for someone to do the same to them. Looking at you Affinity, you seem to have your act together.
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Same same. When Adobe went all SaaS, I switched to the Affinity suite of products, especially Photo and Designer. Guaranteed one time cost for life and they have 80% of the features of Adobe stuff. Maybe that 20% is a dealbreaker for some, but not for my needs.
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the Affinity suite is a great alternative to photoshop. I bought Photo and Designer a couple years ago for $25 each.
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Matching RGB colors is easy. The real utility of the Pantone color matching system is for print, including spot colors that are impossible to accurately represent on screen like day-glo colors or metallics or varnishes.
This. Or even if they stick with spot colors this could be the thing that pushes them to switch to a competing color system.
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Back to crayons.
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And the other reason I also adopt your strategy is a kind of reverse ‘pour encourager les autres’. I’m not giving any money to corp’ns that indulge in this fuckwittery.
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