Printing PANTONE colours digitally can at times produce interesting results, especially when choosing a bright royal PANTONE blue which you’ll quickly find prints dull on a digital printer. Why? Because digital printers are replicating the PANTONE colour using a combination of CMYK, and some colours just go beyond the CMYK colour spectrum.
There is good news.
Pantone together with printer manufacturers, including Ricoh, “developed specific optimised colour data so that the customer can get the best possible representation for the PANTONE Solid Colour standard on coated stock” using PANTONE-calibrated printers. (see source below)
There are two ways to ensure the best possible digital print of your PANTONE colours:
Firstly, download the PANTONE Colour Chart specific to your Ricoh printer.
This will provide you with the CMYK values for each of the colours.
Once the page opens, simply search for the Ricoh model you are using, eg. 4054exSP, then download the associated PDF. Look for the PANTONE colour you are using and add the CMYK values in your document’s swatches using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator & InDesign or CorelDRAW.
Secondly, download the specific PANTONE Colour Palette for your Ricoh printer.
Once the page loads, select your Ricoh printer model under the 'Drivers' category. Next select to download the Pantone Swatch Palette.
Once downloaded, the swatch palette can be imported into Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign or CorelDRAW. The colours are already calibrated for the Ricoh printer.
There will always be slight variations in colour depending on the print driver being used, the printer settings and paper type. The above colour chart and swatch palette will equip customers with the best tools to get the best possible prints.
