‘Blackest Ink’ Maker Recreates Adobe’s Paywalled PANTONEs With ‘FREETONE’ Plugin
Update: Adobe has responded to say that it is “currently looking at ways to lessen the impact on our customers” as PANTONE revises its business model. At present, users have access to up to 14 color books through Creative Cloud subcriptions. The full statement can be found below.
The skies have turned gray for creatives with the removal of PANTONE’s catalog of swatches from Adobe apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, leaving patches of black in their wake. To continue using the colors from November, users will have to pay a subscription fee due to licensing changes between the two firms.
Update (Nov 7, 2022): In a statement, Ashley Still, senior vice president, digital media marketing, strategy & global partnerships at Adobe responds: “As we had shared in June, PANTONE decided to change its business model. Some of the PANTONE Color Books that are pre-loaded in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign were phased-out from future software updates in August 2022. To access the complete set of PANTONE Color Books, PANTONE now requires customers to purchase a premium license through PANTONE Connect and install a plug-in using Adobe Exchange.”
Now that PANTONEs are under gridlock in Adobe Creative Cloud, British artist Stuart Semple has taken it upon himself to bring saturation into your workflow again. Semple is the perfect person for the task—he created an “open-source” blackest black that the community could use when Anish Kapoor acquired exclusive rights to Vantablack, before making the pinkest pink, yellowest yellow, whitest white, greenest green, and ‘Tiff Blue’ accessible to all artists.
The artist has now rolled out a free-to-download plugin called ‘FREETONE’ that seemingly “liberates” PANTONE palettes by matching the vanished tones with lookalikes. Users will be spoilt for choice as there are a total of 1,280 swatches they can access, at no cost at all. These include the ‘Black 3.0’, ‘Pinkest Pink’, ’Tiff Blue’, and ‘Incredibly Kleinish Blue’ (a Calvin Klein blue dupe) envisioned by Semple himself.
FREETONE “unlocks a whole book’s worth of very PANTONE-ish colors,” Semple cheekily points out. The “1,280 ‘liberated’ colors are extremely PANTONEish and reminiscent of those found in the most iconic color book of all time.”
“In fact, it’s been argued that they are indistinguishable from those behind the Adobe paywall,” Semple adds.
Anyone and everyone can install the plugin and continue splashing a spectrum of hues across their work. Well, anyone and everyone but Anish Kapoor and the people who work at Adobe and PANTONE, according to the artist. Those guys have enough.
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In response, the Adobe spokesperson notes: “We are currently looking at ways to lessen the impact on our customers. In the meantime, customers also have access to up to 14 extensive color books through Creative Cloud subscriptions.”
“Adobe Creative Cloud empowers creators with flagship apps like Photoshop, Illustrator etc. to create wherever inspiration strikes and now offers innovations like Share for Review for collaboration, new AI tools to simplify complex tasks, and powerful image editing within the browser.”
[via Dieline and Culture Hustle, images via various sources]
