PANTONE - RAL - HKS - NCS - KEIM color conversions

Frequently Asked Questions:

 

We have paid a license of ColorLinker. When can we receive the license key?

After your purchase you will receive an email with the License Key for the selected license. The license key will be sent to you within a few business hours. Please check your spam filter.

 

What kind of color conversions does ColorLinker enable?

ColorLinker 1.8.x enables all color conversions between PANTONE spot colors (Formula Guide Solid Coated Plus Series 2019, PANTONE Goe Coated and PANTONE Pastel Coated), RAL spot colors (K7 or K5 library), HKS K, NCS Index 1950 Original (NCS S) and KEIM libraries (Avantgarde, Historic, Monochrome, Natural Stone and Exclusive).

 

Does ColorLinker use original PANTONE, RAL, HKS or NCS libraries?

No. Colors were measured by X-Rite spectrophotometers (i1, eXact, ColorMunki and Ci6X). Except KEIM libraries.

 

How many colors are there in ColorLinker totally?

PANTONE Solid Coated Plus library has 2161 colors,

RAL K7 has 213 colors,

HKS K has 88 colors,

PANTONE Goe Coated has 2058 colors,

NCS Index 1950 Original has 1950 colors,

KEIM libraries have 385 colors

and PASTEL Coated has 154 colors.

In total: 7009 colors.

 

Does ColorLinker shows any color values in LAB, sRGB, CMYK etc. for PANTONE, RAL, HKS or NCS colors?

No. ColorLinker shows only the delta E differences between two colors (PANTONE Solid Coated to PANTONE Goe Coated and Pastel Coated, RAL, HKS, NCS and KEIM, RAL to PANTONE (Goe , PMS Coated, Pastel Coated), HKS, NCS, KEIM, HKS to PANTONE (Goe, PMS Coated and Pastel Coated), RAL and NCS etc.).

 

Why does sometimes RAL to PANTONE conversion and then PANTONE to RAL (or vice versa) not match?

ColorLinker always shows the closest color in the conversion (RAL to PANTONE or PANTONE - RAL). In the case of RAL to PANTONE conversion it means that for the 213 colors of the RAL K7 there are 1866 colors of the PANTONE Solid Coated available and vice versa.

HKS K library has 88 colours and PANTONE Pastel Coated has only 154 colors. Usually HKS K and PASTEL colors does not have close equivalent in other libraries such as Pantone PMS, Goe or NCS.

It depends on the closest color which determines the difference delta E in LAB color space.

 

What is the delta E?

It is the difference or distance between two colors. In the ColorLinker case, it is the LAB color space. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_difference

Usually, if deltaE is less than value 6, we can say colors are almost the same. We can see some very small differences such as in blue colors, somewhere else we can not see differences (such as in yellowish colors). If color has difference more than 10, we recommend not to use this conversion. If difference is extremely high (eg. more than 20) there is no equivalent color in selected library.

 

Is a demo version of ColorLinker available?

No.

 

Do you plan to add other spot color libraries to the ColorLinker?

Yes, we do. We plan to add PANTONE FHI library.

 

Tips:

 

How to jump quickly in the pop-up menu?

If you want to move quickly in the color list in the pop-up menu, you can use "Page Up" and "Page Down" key on your keyboard.

 

Colors displayed on my monitor are different from colors in my color guide.

For better color accuracy keep your monitor calibrated.

 

System Requirements:

Intel-based Mac, Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks, 10.10 Yosemite, 10.11 El Captain, macOS 10.12 Sierra, 10.13 High Sierra, 10.14 Mojave, 10.15 Catalina, macOS 11 Big Sur and macOS 12 Monterey.

 

Contact us: pavelmanas@icloud.com