Find Spot Color

Find the Pantone or spot colour a CMYK or RGB colour started life as. Pick a colour, see a ranked list of the closest matches from a colour book with their Delta E, choose the one your experience says is right, and swap it into the document in one click.

See it in the shop · Version 1.3.6 · Needs PowerScripts 3.8.42 or later

Open the PowerScripts panel (Window > Extensions > PowerScripts) and choose Find Spot Color from the Color Tools scripts. The script has two tabs: Options and Colour Books.

1. Select a shape with the colour you want to match and press Selected Fill.
2. Choose the colour book, for example PANTONE+ Solid Coated. The closest colours are listed, closest first.
3. Click the spot colour you want.
4. Press Replace colors in selection (or Replace ALL colors in document).

• Selected Fill, Selected Stroke, Selected Swatch: take the Process Color from the selected shape's fill or stroke, or from the swatch selected in the Swatches panel.
• Process Color: the colour to match. You can also set it with the sliders or type the values.
• Comparison: the Delta E formula used to measure how close each colour is (see below). deltaE 2000 is the best for most work.
• Tolerance: how close a colour in the artwork must be to the Process Color to be replaced (each ink value, in % for CMYK or 0 to 255 for RGB). 0 means exactly the same. If nothing is replaced, the panel says so and suggests a larger tolerance.
• CMYK Profile, RGB Profile, Target Lab: the colour profiles from your Illustrator colour settings, and the colour as Lab, used to compare it with the colour book.
• Colour book list: the colour book to search, with every colour's Lab values and its Delta E from your colour, closest first. The button next to the book name opens your own colour book (.acb or .ase file).
  • Click a colour to choose it for Replace.
  • Double click a colour to add it to your swatches.
• Replace ALL colors in document: swap the Process Color (within the tolerance) for the chosen spot colour everywhere in the document.
• Replace colors in selection: the same, in the selected artwork only.

On big artwork a Stop button shows while it works.

• .acb Folder Location: where the script looks for colour books (.acb files, in subfolders too). It starts with Illustrator's own swatch library folder. Point it at a folder of your own books if you keep them elsewhere.

Delta E is the difference between two colours: the lower the number, the closer the match. Below 1 is as good as the same, and about 2 to 3 is the smallest difference most people can see.

The closest colour isn't always the right one. A Pantone colour converted to CMYK often loses some of its saturation, so the original spot colour may be a little further down the list. For example, the standard CMYK red (100% magenta, 100% yellow) is closest to PANTONE 711 C, but the job may well have started as the stronger PANTONE 186 C. The script shows you several close matches so you can use your judgement.

There are four standard formulas:

• deltaE 1976: the first formula. Simple, but it overrates differences in strong, saturated colours.
• deltaE 1994: improves on 1976 with weights for lightness, chroma and hue.
• deltaE 2000 (recommended): the most accurate, with corrections for hue, neutral colours, lightness and chroma.
• deltaE CMC: from the textile industry (the Colour Measurement Committee), based on lightness, chroma and hue.

1. Select the logo, press Selected Fill.
2. Look at the top few matches and pick the one that's right for the brand (check the brand guide if you have it).
3. Press Replace ALL colors in document. Every use of that CMYK colour is now the spot colour.

• If nothing is replaced, the artwork's colour is a little different from the Process Color: raise the Tolerance a little, or pick the colour again with Selected Fill.
• Unlike Illustrator's Recolor Artwork, you can work on one colour at a time and keep everything else as it is.
• To update the formulas of spot colours you already have, use Re-Spot.

• Gradients are included, in fills and strokes.
• The match depends on your colour settings (Edit > Color Settings): the profiles shown in the panel are the ones used.

• 1.3.6
  • New: a long replace can be stopped: it shows how far it has got.
  • Fixed: the Comparison setting is used for the colour book matches, and the colour book you pick stays picked.
  • Improved: faster on big artwork, gradient strokes are included, and general bug fixes and reliability.
• 1.3.4
  • New: a Tolerance setting for how close a colour must be to be replaced.
  • Improved: when no colours are replaced, it says so in orange and suggests a larger tolerance.
• 1.3.3: Updated for PowerScripts 3.8.32.
• Older changes: PowerScripts Release Notes