Ever Wonder What's the Meaning Behind Pantone Numbers?

 

Pantone:

Pantone is a standard “Color Matching System” using a special number method to identify different colors. Whatever color it is, that same color can be found easily with Pantone Color Book, because each color has a different code number. A page has multiple swatches for just one color.

Why Pantone Color Book is Necessary in Textile Industry?

Suppose the buyer told you from America, he needs 1,000Kgs of light peached creamy fabric. But how do you know exactly what color he’s talking about? In this case, each person will give a different opinion but can’t come to the right conclusion. But it would be easy if you have a Pantone color book if the buyer says Pantone number (Peach Fuzz 13-1023 TPX) instead of that color, you can easily find that color from the Pantone book. 

Types of Pantone Books:

Textile Color on Cotton (TCX)

These are colorful pure cotton swatches in each individual color. This looks like a Passport guide or Chipset. TCX Pantone books are much more expensive. Because with the full cotton swatch here it can cost hundreds to few thousand dollars.

Textile Color on Paper (TPX)

In this case, it is made of a paper swatch instead of a cotton swatch, and each swatch is unique and colorful. TPX Pantone book is much lower than TCX. Recently updated the TPX Pantone book to the TPG Pantone book. (Textile Paper Green) {All lead and chromium materials removed from TPX products for environment-friendly updates} 

Use of TCX & TPX

TCX is commonly used as a standard color swatch for Reactive and dispersed dyeing and TPX is followed for Pigment which is used as a standard for Printing.

The Reason for the Difference between Shades of TCX and TPX

Often buyer gives a color code from TCX to the manufacturer, but the manufacturer has a TPX Pantone book instead of TCX. After dyeing the clothes to match that color code TPX they found the shade didn’t match. Now the main reason why there is a difference between TCX and TPX shades of the same color code is analyzed below.

TCX

TCX is a standard color swatch with dyeing poplin fabric and TPX is a standard color swatch printed on paper. Since TPX is a color printed on paper, it will have a little more lightness and brightness. TCX on the other hand as the color on cotton fabric will be more than Depth TPX and less brightness.

The shades of TPX and TCX of the same Pantone number are different. In this case, TPX is more about 15% lighter than TPX or TCX  is 15% deep compared to TPX. The shades of TPX and TCX will remain different due to depth, hence TCX and TPX can never be considered same even if the numbers are the same.

Features of Pantone Number:

The Pantone number is not just a unique number, but it has a special meaning that reveals some characteristics of color.

We know three color attributes, namely: Hue, Value, and Chroma. Here is the Pantone number 6 digits, the first two digits reveal the lightness of color, the middle two digits reveal Hue, which means whether the color is Red/Yellow/Green/Blue, and the last two digits color Chroma, which defines Dullness/Vividness.

Example:

1. Pantone 19-4052 TCX (Classic Blue)

19 = Lightness

40 = Hue

52 = Chroma

Ranges of Lightness, Hue, and Chroma

Lightness > Min: 11 & Max: 19

Hue > Min: 1 & Max: 64

Chroma > Min: 0 & Max: 64

That's all from this week, See you all next week with a new topic and new discussion. Till then, This was Usama Raza signing off.