Pantone Matching System

The Pantone Matching System (PMS) is a widely used system for matching colors exactly. Primarily used by the printing industry, it is regarded as the means of matching colors exactly in the production stage. The System goes beyond the capabilities of existing color profiling systems such as CMYK and RGB and is based on pigment mixing to create "spot" and "special" colors. The System is proprietary to Pantone which is why it is not found in most image editing applications as a profile.

This small information brief is designed to quickly answer questions about the Pantone Matching System.