That’s true. So if you need help mapping a digital colour to chemicals that will produce a similar colour on certain materials in certain light conditions, maybe there’s a service to be rendered.

I generally support the business arguments of this issue. The monthly fee seems kind of ridiculous and the work was done a long time ago and was included for free.

But too many times have I seen people warp the truth into a cute sound bite about having to pay to use colours. They’re not colours, they’re mappings.

You're vastly underestimating the complexity of this problem. In tech we're a bit spoiled because of how digital everything in our orbit is. This is why Pantone licensing for the web is so stupid. But when you go into industries that have physical products the cost these companies would have to do proper color matching on their own is where Pantone's system makes sense. They simplified, codified, standardized, and commoditized what used to be a painstakingly costly exercise.

So basically, they want some money to map RGB values to a set of numbers, each of which enumerates the output of a ridiculously challenging chemistry project?

For the web, yes which is just such a joke. For physical goods it's far more complex than just RGB.

> they want some money to map RGB values to a set of numbers

Sorry to reiterate this in another thread, but what they want is some money to map the output of a ridiculously challenging chemistry project to some RGB values that will give a vaguely similar impression.

Hmm, or the ridiculously challenging chemistry products could have spec sheets with spectra? Then other folks could work maps.

Though that would be failing to leverage dominant market position to extract maximum value. Leaving aside the "nice years of images you'all have there... it would be a shame if..." aspect of current events. To be fair, it's not like some (Si not color) chip makers with dominant position aren't "here's the spec... and if you want to actually use the chip, without massive reverse engineering, ask sales about your support and partnership options". And I suppose there's also "surprise, v2 is discontinued - to adapt your work to v3, contact sales".

I'm exploring emphasizing spectra in K-2 color content, to help disentangle the usual incoherent blur of material properties, physical light, and physiologic color. So I've wondered the last few days if Pantone somehow prevents scanning a chip set and posting spectra. As it might also permit "New Dryadtone(tm pending) Adobe palette to the rescue, now for only $5/mo! With our wonderful Palette Pricing Stability Guarantee!"

The mappings are for the monitor, and are not accurate because they can't be.

Pantone isn't selling mappings, they're selling formulas for colors. The reason you're paying for mappings is because they are mappings for workable representations of those formulas for colors.

If you never do anything for print, you don't need spots or Pantone.

The $15 they want is to map an RGB to a Pantone number, no?

> The $15 they want is to map an RGB to a Pantone number, no?

The exact opposite, but close enough.

> to also define which RGB values have a corresponding Pantone. Ie. “You can accurately print this number!

This is still backwards. Pantone has not gone through the RGB numbers and figured what inks they could make. Pantone has made inks, and when people need to work on a screen, with projects that will use those inks, they need mappings that will give them a reasonable enough approximation of the colors of those inks to do their jobs. What is printed will not match what is on the screen (irt color.)

> Give the printing apparatus these numbers and they’ll mix the pigments precisely based on formulas they have (and probably also paid for?)

Absolutely. But those numbers will have nothing to do with either RGB or CMYK, other than that approximations of those colors in RGB were used to do the design. Prepress people and designers are composing with RGB, but printing with Pantone. It's as if you composed an orchestra piece on a piano.

Okay thank you so much for sharing. I’ve really enjoyed this thread because it feels like I better understand the nuances of the issue and can better articulate my perspective on it.