I need help settling a debate I had with another InDesign user.
I showed him a document that I made, a flyer, and it used a blue background, c=44, m=4, y=4, k=0. I’ll be sending it to be printed on a 4 color press.
He asked me why I was using a CMYK swatch instead of a Pantone swatch. He said that because I don’t have a calibrated monitor, I can’t know exactly what that blue is going to look like in print, so I should have let my client pick a PMS color.
I replied that there was no way I was going to make my client pay for a 5th plate for a Pantone spot just so that she could know exactly what the background color was going to look like. He said that he always uses PMS swatches for the different colors in his documents.
I said well, you’re just making extra work for pre press because they have to convert your spots to process, so why not just do the work for them.
He said nope, that’s not how it works. You should let your client pick their colors from a Pantone swatch book, then use those PMS colors.
I said absolutely not. I may let a client pick a Pantone swatch from a book, but I’m going to convert that swatch to CMYK when I add it to my document. The only time I will use a spot color is if I have a logo or some other element which the client insists must be this spot color. And even then, I will explain to the client that doing this is going to mean printing will cost more because it uses an extra plate.
In the past, I’ve seen documents that this friend has made that use 5, 6 or more spot colors. We both send our work to the same printer, and I assume that they are converting all of his spots to process for him in prepress.
So… who’s right?
.
