Adobe is stopping free access to Pantone Color Libraries in Creative Cloud, a move that affects companies in the promotional products industry that rely on the offering from the San Jose, CA-headquartered multinational software company.

Creative Cloud is a set of applications and services that give subscribers access to a collection of software used for graphic design, video editing, web development and photography.

Many designers, decorators/printers and others in the promo products space use the platform, which is the dominant software of its type in the print and design worlds. Pantone is the leading color-matching service.

Pantone Color Libraries have been part of Adobe applications since the 1990s. Now, however, Adobe is removing many of the standardized pre-loaded color libraries from Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

Three Pantone Color books will remain – Pantone + CMYK coated, Pantone + CMYK uncoated, and Pantone + Metallics coated. But for those being nixed, the phasing out, as it’s been described, began Aug. 16.

The upshot is that Adobe-using promo companies and others must buy Pantone Connect licenses to access the full suite of Pantone libraries through a plug-in. Pantone Connect costs $59.99 per user per year, or $7.99/month (about $96 annually). “The Pantone Connect subscription is an additional indefinite expense,” says Brandon Courdet, an artist/designer with Chandler, AZ-based distributorship Stowebridge (asi/337500).

Promo Pros React

For companies in print/promo, there are practical implications to the new approach to Pantone Color Libraries beyond just having to pay for a plug-in.

Certain industry pros are concerned that the changes could lead to confusion that causes color mistakes and inconsistencies in apparel decoration and other print work.

Relatedly, there are workflow/ease-of-use issues. Courdet says Pantone Connect “doesn’t work very well” and is a significant downgrade from having the libraries pre-loaded in Adobe.

“We use Pantone to gauge color matching for customers and as a way to signify the spot color on direct to screen for screen printing,” Courdet shares. “Many of our vendors require us to assign Pantone colors for a variety of promotional goods. It’s something that we use every day and it now includes additional steps, additional cost, and additional time navigating their plugin.”

Some see potential broader issues.

“I hope this isn’t the beginning of the end with Pantone collaboration,” says Angelo Montiel, art director at AMB3R (asi/590243), a Lakewood, CO-based distributorship. “PMS unites graphic designers the world over. Without it, it will create less understanding and more confusion across the design and manufacturing worlds.”

Montiel’s colleague, AMB3R CEO Jeremy Picker, believes possible impacts will be felt more keenly in the textile and interiors space, rather than in the merch market. “I don’t think the impact will be as great for us because most customers don’t use proper PMS call outs,” says Picker.

He believes more changes from Pantone could be forthcoming – and they could cost companies. “Since less people are buying the physical books it seems,” Picker states, “Pantone will probably come out with their own color swatch files eventually for an added fee to keep revenues going.”

Why the Change?

Experts in the print and design industries have speculated that Adobe cut the free-for-Creative-Cloud-users access to Pantone Color Libraries due to disputes over licensing fees with Pantone.

Officially, Adobe said the change on the accessibility was a result of Pantone’s licensing with Adobe being “adjusted.”

In a statement, Pantone said: “Since 2010, the Pantone Color Libraries within Adobe’s apps have not been updated. The Pantone Color Libraries in Creative Cloud today are therefore significantly out of date and missing hundreds of new Pantone colors. Pantone and Adobe have together decided to remove the outdated libraries and jointly focus on an improved in-app experience that better serves our users.”

That solution is the Pantone Connect plug-in, which offers access to more than 15,000 up-to-date Pantone colors.

With Connect, users can do things like get color data to find the nearest RGB/CMYK/Hex/L*a*b* color equivalents to Pantone colors; convert color data for the best-fit color to match substrates; measure colors from real life by using the Pantone Color Match Card; use color stories to create custom collages with multiple images; and extract and isolate colors from the collage colors from images that are uploaded.

Going forward, InDesign files with swatches from Pantone Color Books “will function as before when opened or placed in InDesign,” according to Adobe. However, InDesign files with place-linked Photoshop files that use spot channels will render gray/black in InDesign when colors from color books cease to be available.

Adobe noted that other color specification systems like ANPA, DIC, Focoltone, HKS, Toyo and Trumatch will continue to be available in Adobe Creative Cloud apps.