: Find color profile given CMYK values for some Pantone colors I have an EPS file created with Illustrator CS2 which uses spot colors: %%CMYKCustomColor: 1 0.7200 0 0.5600 (PANTONE 282 C) %%+ 0

Posted in: #AdobeIllustrator #ColorProfile

I have an EPS file created with Illustrator CS2 which uses spot colors:

%%CMYKCustomColor: 1 0.7200 0 0.5600 (PANTONE 282 C)
%%+ 0 1 0.6200 0 (PANTONE 199 C)

I need to create a document using the same spot colors, with matching CMYK values.

I took those and some others from the swatches, my document in CS6 uses Book Color, i.e. L*a*b (47,75,40) for 199C.
From this question I learned that the definitions changed from CMYK in CS5, so it's not surprise when I save my document as EPS I get a different definition:

%%+ 0.0684 1 0.8524 0.0096 (PANTONE 199 C)

The document's working CMYK profile is "U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2".
But when I enable Proof Colors, simulating i.e. "Coated FOGRA27 (ISO 12647-2:2004)" exporting to EPS changes the definition, but only when "Preserve CMYK Colors" is checked (which I would have expected to do the exact opposite)

%%+ 0.0421 1 0.7941 0.0035 (PANTONE 199 C)

Even though the export is changed by the proof profile, the values I get when clicking the swatch color after switching it from Book to CMYK don't change (presumably it's using the document's working profile there?).

I tried all proof profiles that I thought make sense but none of them matches the colors in my input file; however, I need to produce a file with that color—changing the input to match the new definition, which would also make all the colors match, is not an option.

Is there a way to tell which profile has been used to create the original EPS file? I found no indication of that.

Maybe a table of which profiles produce which CMYK values for different Pantone colors? I only found i.e. 0 1 0.77 0.16 for 199C, but I have no idea where that definition comes from.

Is there a table for the fixed CMYK-Pantone values old Illustrator versions used somewhere?

The obvious solution might be to just manually enter the values for the colors defined in the input document for mine, but it doesn't include all the colors I'm using, so they wouldn't all get shifted the same way, losing their relative values which might end up looking off.