Photoshop

Choose a spot color

The Adobe Color Picker lets you choose colors from the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM®, the Trumatch® Swatching System™, the Focoltone® Colour System, the Toyo Color Finder™ 1050 system, the ANPA-Color™ system, the HKS® color system, and the DIC Color Guide.

To ensure that the final printed output is the color you want, consult your printer or service bureau and choose your color based on a printed color swatch. Manufacturers recommend that you get a new swatch book each year to compensate for fading inks and other damage.

Important: Photoshop prints spot colors to CMYK (process color) plates in every image mode except Duotone. To print true spot color plates, create spot color channels.
  1. Open the Adobe Color Picker, and click Color Libraries.

    The Custom Colors dialog box displays the color closest to the color currently selected in the Adobe Color Picker.

  2. For Book, choose a color library. See below for descriptions of the color libraries.
  3. Locate the color you want by entering the ink number or by dragging the triangles along the scroll bar.
  4. Click the desired color patch in the list.

Spot color libraries

The Adobe Color Picker supports the following color systems:

ANPA-COLOR
Commonly used for newspaper applications. The ANPA-COLOR ROP Newspaper Color Ink Book contains samples of the ANPA colors.

DIC Color Guide
Commonly used for printing projects in Japan. For more information, contact Dainippon Ink & Chemicals, Inc., in Tokyo, Japan.

FOCOLTONE
Consists of 763 CMYK colors. Focoltone colors help avoid prepress trapping and registration problems by showing the overprints that make up the colors. A swatch book with specifications for process and spot colors, overprint charts, and a chip book for marking up layouts are available from Focoltone. For more information, contact Focoltone International, Ltd., in Stafford, United Kingdom.

HKS swatches
Used for printing projects in Europe. Each color has a specified CMYK equivalent. You can select from HKS E (for continuous stationery), HKS K (for gloss art paper), HKS N (for natural paper), and HKS Z (for newsprint). Color samplers for each scale are available. HKS Process books and swatches have been added to the color system menu.

PANTONE®
Colors used for spot-color reproduction. The PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM can render 1,114 colors. PANTONE color guides and chip books are printed on coated, uncoated, and matte paper stocks to ensure accurate visualization of the printed result and better on-press control. You can print a solid PANTONE color in CMYK. To compare a solid PANTONE color to its closest process color match, use the PANTONE solid to process guide. The CMYK screen tint percentages are printed under each color. For more information, contact Pantone, Inc., Carlstadt, NJ (www.pantone.com).

TOYO Color Finder 1050
Consists of more than 1000 colors based on the most common printing inks used in Japan. The TOYO Process Color Finder book and swatches have been added to the color system menu. The TOYO Color Finder 1050 Book contains printed samples of Toyo colors and is available from printers and graphic arts supply stores. For more information, contact Toyo Ink Manufacturing Co., Ltd., in Tokyo, Japan.

TRUMATCH
Provides predictable CMYK color matching with more than 2000 achievable, computer-generated colors. Trumatch colors cover the visible spectrum of the CMYK gamut in even steps. The Trumatch Color displays up to 40 tints and shades of each hue, each originally created in four-color process and each reproducible in four colors on electronic imagesetters. In addition, four-color grays using different hues are included. For more information, contact Trumatch Inc., in New York City, New York.