I've never satisfactorily solved the colour matching problem while working on the print jobs I do every few months or so. A few years back I wrote up some colour tips I've learned, but it doesn't exactly mean I've gotten any better at it in the mean time.
Browsing through the local specialty art book store the other day, I came across the Process Color Manual, a colour guide for CMYK that nicely fills a gap in my collection. It's basically a formula guide of printed swatches and their specific CMYK values. It doesn't cover every combination in existence, but at 24,000 possible values, it's good enough for my needs.
Sure I could have gone the Pantone route as well and paid a bunch more, but, compare: 24,000 colour selections on one type of paper, vs. 1,114 colour selections on three types of paper. Given my modest print needs, I'll save the extra money for some other rainy day.
So after discovering this book, I'm curious now — does anyone know if there's a (legal) equivalent for spot colour? I'm guessing Pantone's system is all sorts of proprietary and anyone trying to release their own book of the same would be sued out of existence, but, maybe not.
[via Dave Shea's mezzoblue]
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