Greedy executives from Pantone company. Adobe needs to create their own color swatches and ditch these blood sucking leeches.
No different than Apple.
Use Windows.
Why? What does Windows have to do with Apple, who makes huge profits selling iPhones, iPads and Macs. Apple doesn't sell their OS.
I think the point @mikethemartian was making was that everyone stands behind Apple when it comes to huge profits on hardware and services and their controversial 30% App Store "fee", but when Pantone wants to get paid for their product, they're "blood sucking leeches"?
Not for me. I’m just saying that if he doesn’t like it, he can go to Windows. If you don’t like something, you’re free to go somewhere else.
I like to see developers get more reliable income if they are continuing to improve an App or Program and if they are also supporting their software.
But subscriptions are starting to add up across the board. They are becoming a significant monthly or yearly expense.
I wish Adobe had a lower tier subscription level for folks that are 65 and over, as many are on a fixed income.
In my case, and I’m not alone, I do occasional work for old customers despite being retired. My income however can’t support paying the Adobe complete suite subscription or really anything beyond the Photoshop and Lightroom combo deal.
I’ve had to keep an older Mac with a 32 bit Mac OS to keep the CS6 suite running for use of InDesign and Illustrator.
I also donate design and photography to a number of non-profits with zero income on those jobs.
As far as Pantone, I’ll be looking at what QuarkXpress does in that regard. So far they have not commented on any price change or Pantone charge. I could switch from InDesign to Quark and still create great design.
Greedy executives from Pantone company. Adobe needs to create their own color swatches and ditch these blood sucking leeches.
No different than Apple.
Use Windows.
Why? What does Windows have to do with Apple, who makes huge profits selling iPhones, iPads and Macs. Apple doesn't sell their OS.
I think the point @mikethemartian was making was that everyone stands behind Apple when it comes to huge profits on hardware and services and their controversial 30% App Store "fee", but when Pantone wants to get paid for their product, they're "blood sucking leeches"?
Apple created, develops and updates a reliable, secure platform that quite literally generates the customer base that app developers want to tap into. Their cut of App Store sales is earned.
What, exactly does Pantone do that isn’t just self-promotional hype? Standardized color tones were done decades ago. Everything since is just labeling colors with names, and announcing arbitrarily chosen “this season’s colors” for the fashion industry.
On another thread, someone mislabeled Apple’s App Store as rent-seeking, but Pantone is really a far better example of an unnecessary business inserting themselves into the process just to take revenue from others for very little added value in return.
I like to see developers get more reliable income if they are continuing to improve an App or Program and if they are also supporting their software.
But subscriptions are starting to add up across the board. They are becoming a significant monthly or yearly expense.
I wish Adobe had a lower tier subscription level for folks that are 65 and over, as many are on a fixed income.
In my case, and I’m not alone, I do occasional work for old customers despite being retired. My income however can’t support paying the Adobe complete suite subscription or really anything beyond the Photoshop and Lightroom combo deal.
I’ve had to keep an older Mac with a 32 bit Mac OS to keep the CS6 suite running for use of InDesign and Illustrator.
I also donate design and photography to a number of non-profits with zero income on those jobs.
As far as Pantone, I’ll be looking at what QuarkXpress does in that regard. So far they have not commented on any price change or Pantone charge. I could switch from InDesign to Quark and still create great design.
Totally agree over the issue on occasional usage of Adobe products. Adobe needs to come up with a few levels of tier. They can do this by tracking the hours that an individual uses per month and go from there. It would be more affordable for part time designers.
Greedy executives from Pantone company. Adobe needs to create their own color swatches and ditch these blood sucking leeches.
No different than Apple.
Use Windows.
Why? What does Windows have to do with Apple, who makes huge profits selling iPhones, iPads and Macs. Apple doesn't sell their OS.
I think the point @mikethemartian was making was that everyone stands behind Apple when it comes to huge profits on hardware and services and their controversial 30% App Store "fee", but when Pantone wants to get paid for their product, they're "blood sucking leeches"?
Apple created, develops and updates a reliable, secure platform that quite literally generates the customer base that app developers want to tap into. Their cut of App Store sales is earned.
What, exactly does Pantone do that isn’t just self-promotional hype? Standardized color tones were done decades ago. Everything since is just labeling colors with names, and announcing arbitrarily chosen “this season’s colors” for the fashion industry.
On another thread, someone mislabeled Apple’s App Store as rent-seeking, but Pantone is really a far better example of an unnecessary business inserting themselves into the process just to take revenue from others for very little added value in return.
All most people see of Pantone (a division of X-Rite, which is essential to the point I'm going to make) is the color-of-the-year post and perhaps a style guide they use in their work that specifies a few Pantone color numbers that are for use in their printed materials. If all Pantone did was maintain a historical database of printing color formulas & name a color-of-the-year then, sure, they might be blood-sucking leeches.
In addition to naming these colors and defining their LAB values objectively, Pantone also develops & maintains ink-mixing formulas for printers to offer the full palette of Pantone colors from a set of standard ink donor colors. This is not a trivial endeavor. Ink suppliers use these references to manufacture ink for various printing processes. This has been the traditional Pantone business:
Define colors for designers to use, generating revenue from selling swatch books & licensing the library for inclusion in design software
Provide manufacturing specifications to ink suppliers and printers, again, generating revenue by selling swatch books & licensing suppliers
Several years ago Pantone was bought by X-Rite which makes color measurement & management technology. They play in a much larger league than just printing. They are into textiles, plastics, paint, etc. As part of X-Rite, Pantone has become the creative-facing part of the color pipeline for all many industries. X-Rite uses its measurement & management technology to manage color matching across mediums. When you license the Pantone Connect app you get access to much more than the printing ink libraries traditionally included with design software. You get the textile library. You get the pigments & coatings library. With these reference libraries, X-Rite offers solutions to implement these color systems into plastics, paint, cosmetics and others. To be clear: This is overkill for the average designer or brand. But this is the business Pantone is part of now, and it is very complex and high-end. The current owners of Pantone are not just milking printing ink color definitions from decades past. They are incorporating traditional color libraries into their multi-industry product portfolio.
On the other hand...
The Pantone Connect App is garbage. App design is clearly not a core competency of X-Rite. Currently, the App is a huge step back in productivity for a busy designer working with different colors daily.
Perhaps...
An open-source industry group could develop & promote a color reference library that could be freely distributed with design software. They would need to do more than collate a list of LAB color values with names & numbers. Table stakes for this library require an ink-mixing formula guide using standardized printing ink donors (not sure if there are royalty-free donor inks available for this purpose, they might have to be developed along with the system) to create spot color recipes for all the colors defined in the library. This would replace the legacy functionality of the Pantone Matching System. It is a lot of work and it would have to be monetized somehow. But it wouldn't have as much overhead as X-Rite's business which is where Pantone lives now, thus theoretically less expensive to license than X-Rite's Pantone.
Greedy executives from Pantone company. Adobe needs to create their own color swatches and ditch these blood sucking leeches.
No different than Apple.
Use Windows.
Why? What does Windows have to do with Apple, who makes huge profits selling iPhones, iPads and Macs. Apple doesn't sell their OS.
I think the point @mikethemartian was making was that everyone stands behind Apple when it comes to huge profits on hardware and services and their controversial 30% App Store "fee", but when Pantone wants to get paid for their product, they're "blood sucking leeches"?
Apple created, develops and updates a reliable, secure platform that quite literally generates the customer base that app developers want to tap into. Their cut of App Store sales is earned.
What, exactly does Pantone do that isn’t just self-promotional hype? Standardized color tones were done decades ago. Everything since is just labeling colors with names, and announcing arbitrarily chosen “this season’s colors” for the fashion industry.
On another thread, someone mislabeled Apple’s App Store as rent-seeking, but Pantone is really a far better example of an unnecessary business inserting themselves into the process just to take revenue from others for very little added value in return.
All most people see of Pantone (a division of X-Rite, which is essential to the point I'm going to make) is the color-of-the-year post and perhaps a style guide they use in their work that specifies a few Pantone color numbers that are for use in their printed materials. If all Pantone did was maintain a historical database of printing color formulas & name a color-of-the-year then, sure, they might be blood-sucking leeches.
In addition to naming these colors and defining their LAB values objectively, Pantone also develops & maintains ink-mixing formulas for printers to offer the full palette of Pantone colors from a set of standard ink donor colors. This is not a trivial endeavor. Ink suppliers use these references to manufacture ink for various printing processes. This has been the traditional Pantone business:
Define colors for designers to use, generating revenue from selling swatch books & licensing the library for inclusion in design software
Provide manufacturing specifications to ink suppliers and printers, again, generating revenue by selling swatch books & licensing suppliers
Several years ago Pantone was bought by X-Rite which makes color measurement & management technology. They play in a much larger league than just printing. They are into textiles, plastics, paint, etc. As part of X-Rite, Pantone has become the creative-facing part of the color pipeline for all many industries. X-Rite uses its measurement & management technology to manage color matching across mediums. When you license the Pantone Connect app you get access to much more than the printing ink libraries traditionally included with design software. You get the textile library. You get the pigments & coatings library. With these reference libraries, X-Rite offers solutions to implement these color systems into plastics, paint, cosmetics and others. To be clear: This is overkill for the average designer or brand. But this is the business Pantone is part of now, and it is very complex and high-end. The current owners of Pantone are not just milking printing ink color definitions from decades past. They are incorporating traditional color libraries into their multi-industry product portfolio.
On the other hand...
The Pantone Connect App is garbage. App design is clearly not a core competency of X-Rite. Currently, the App is a huge step back in productivity for a busy designer working with different colors daily.
Perhaps...
An open-source industry group could develop & promote a color reference library that could be freely distributed with design software. They would need to do more than collate a list of LAB color values with names & numbers. Table stakes for this library require an ink-mixing formula guide using standardized printing ink donors (not sure if there are royalty-free donor inks available for this purpose, they might have to be developed along with the system) to create spot color recipes for all the colors defined in the library. This would replace the legacy functionality of the Pantone Matching System. It is a lot of work and it would have to be monetized somehow. But it wouldn't have as much overhead as X-Rite's business which is where Pantone lives now, thus theoretically less expensive to license than X-Rite's Pantone.
Good explainer. If they're doing back-end work so that subscribers can be assured that colors match not only across different printer ink vendors, but also other media, then that's not rent seeking, either.
I read on another site that this is actually due to Adobe refusing to update Pantone color swatches as Pantone wanted them to do. Evidence that this might be the case is that there are more updated version of the Color Books available in Affinity Pro.
So is it Pantone, or is it Adobe? Who knows. I was a bit surprised to hear that Affinity Pro includes the Pantone swatches.
I read on another site that this is actually due to Adobe refusing to update Pantone color swatches as Pantone wanted them to do. Evidence that this might be the case is that there are more updated version of the Color Books available in Affinity Pro.
So is it Pantone, or is it Adobe? Who knows. I was a bit surprised to hear that Affinity Pro includes the Pantone swatches.
Interesting. Probably it will cost Adobe an arm and a leg to upgrade all of their entire line up applications (Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Dimension....etc) to the new Pantone system. Adobe just spent a ridiculous $20B on an UX company so basically they are broke. Therefore the users pick up the tabs. This is just great! More monthly subscription.
I read on another site that this is actually due to Adobe refusing to update Pantone color swatches as Pantone wanted them to do. Evidence that this might be the case is that there are more updated version of the Color Books available in Affinity Pro.
So is it Pantone, or is it Adobe? Who knows. I was a bit surprised to hear that Affinity Pro includes the Pantone swatches.
I'm sure this is how it went down, Adobe walked away from the licensing relationship. The big licensing check from Adobe had to be something Pantone/X-Rite looked forward to every year. My guess is Adobe balked at a proposed license fee hike. Perhaps Pantone was caught off-guard when Adobe decided to walk. This might explain the very poor Pantone Connect App for Creative Suite—the App might have been a rush job to fill a gap no one expected. However, I also used their prior stand-alone Mac App, which was also terrible. Even if this was a carefully planned strategic shift, I am not surprised the App is garbage. They have not proven to produce quality Pantone apps in the past.
Another thought on the garbage app: It does, technically, house all the Pantone colors a designer might need. What it doesn't offer: A workflow conducive to the creative process. An example: In Photoshop with the legacy Pantone Libraries installed, you can sample a color from open artwork that you want to find a Pantone-equivalent to, open the color picker modal and switch over to the Color Libraries picker from a button embedded right in the modal and Photoshop will automatically select the closest color swatch from the active swatch book that is selectable at the top of the window, which could be Pantone+ Coated, Pantone Pastels, Pantone Metallics, etc. You can accomplish a similar task using the Pantone Connect App with a bunch of noodling around. It's just not super intuitive and tends to bog me down. No part of Photoshop ever needs me to log in before I can use it, but Pantone Connect needs frequent refreshing of login credentials.
If the App can be improved, specifically, by requiring fewer (none?) logins, embedding creative color workflows right into Photoshop (and the rest of Creative Cloud) as they have been forever in the legacy color book system and adhering to the UI metaphors of the host application, I could see this as a viable alternative to Adobe buying a license to Pantone's libraries on my behalf when I purchase a CC subscription.
Maybe the most creative-friendly solution is that Pantone Connect is used to verify an active subscription, and once that subscription is verified, all the legacy color library books "just appear" where you've always found them throughout the long history of Pantone being included in Adobe products. Let Pantone include whatever other tools & workflows in the Connect palette, but restore the "old way" as well. They don't interfere with each other in any way I can think of.
I read on another site that this is actually due to Adobe refusing to update Pantone color swatches as Pantone wanted them to do. Evidence that this might be the case is that there are more updated version of the Color Books available in Affinity Pro.
So is it Pantone, or is it Adobe? Who knows. I was a bit surprised to hear that Affinity Pro includes the Pantone swatches.
Corel also includes the Pantone swatches, and those are revised with each version update.
Comments
In addition to naming these colors and defining their LAB values objectively, Pantone also develops & maintains ink-mixing formulas for printers to offer the full palette of Pantone colors from a set of standard ink donor colors. This is not a trivial endeavor. Ink suppliers use these references to manufacture ink for various printing processes. This has been the traditional Pantone business:
- Define colors for designers to use, generating revenue from selling swatch books & licensing the library for inclusion in design software
- Provide manufacturing specifications to ink suppliers and printers, again, generating revenue by selling swatch books & licensing suppliers
Several years ago Pantone was bought by X-Rite which makes color measurement & management technology. They play in a much larger league than just printing. They are into textiles, plastics, paint, etc. As part of X-Rite, Pantone has become the creative-facing part of the color pipeline for all many industries. X-Rite uses its measurement & management technology to manage color matching across mediums. When you license the Pantone Connect app you get access to much more than the printing ink libraries traditionally included with design software. You get the textile library. You get the pigments & coatings library. With these reference libraries, X-Rite offers solutions to implement these color systems into plastics, paint, cosmetics and others. To be clear: This is overkill for the average designer or brand. But this is the business Pantone is part of now, and it is very complex and high-end. The current owners of Pantone are not just milking printing ink color definitions from decades past. They are incorporating traditional color libraries into their multi-industry product portfolio.On the other hand...
The Pantone Connect App is garbage. App design is clearly not a core competency of X-Rite. Currently, the App is a huge step back in productivity for a busy designer working with different colors daily.
Perhaps...
An open-source industry group could develop & promote a color reference library that could be freely distributed with design software. They would need to do more than collate a list of LAB color values with names & numbers. Table stakes for this library require an ink-mixing formula guide using standardized printing ink donors (not sure if there are royalty-free donor inks available for this purpose, they might have to be developed along with the system) to create spot color recipes for all the colors defined in the library. This would replace the legacy functionality of the Pantone Matching System. It is a lot of work and it would have to be monetized somehow. But it wouldn't have as much overhead as X-Rite's business which is where Pantone lives now, thus theoretically less expensive to license than X-Rite's Pantone.
Another thought on the garbage app: It does, technically, house all the Pantone colors a designer might need. What it doesn't offer: A workflow conducive to the creative process. An example: In Photoshop with the legacy Pantone Libraries installed, you can sample a color from open artwork that you want to find a Pantone-equivalent to, open the color picker modal and switch over to the Color Libraries picker from a button embedded right in the modal and Photoshop will automatically select the closest color swatch from the active swatch book that is selectable at the top of the window, which could be Pantone+ Coated, Pantone Pastels, Pantone Metallics, etc. You can accomplish a similar task using the Pantone Connect App with a bunch of noodling around. It's just not super intuitive and tends to bog me down. No part of Photoshop ever needs me to log in before I can use it, but Pantone Connect needs frequent refreshing of login credentials.
If the App can be improved, specifically, by requiring fewer (none?) logins, embedding creative color workflows right into Photoshop (and the rest of Creative Cloud) as they have been forever in the legacy color book system and adhering to the UI metaphors of the host application, I could see this as a viable alternative to Adobe buying a license to Pantone's libraries on my behalf when I purchase a CC subscription.
Maybe the most creative-friendly solution is that Pantone Connect is used to verify an active subscription, and once that subscription is verified, all the legacy color library books "just appear" where you've always found them throughout the long history of Pantone being included in Adobe products. Let Pantone include whatever other tools & workflows in the Connect palette, but restore the "old way" as well. They don't interfere with each other in any way I can think of.