The Pantone CMYK Guide has colours which have values as follows: CMYK = 0,25,56,8 The total does not add up to 100, therefore how to interpret these values into percentages?
Answer
CMYK colours rarely will add up to 100, and there is no reason they should.
Each of the numbers in CMYK (xx,xx,xx,xx) ARE percentages of coverage of each colour, Not ratios of the total.
A lot will be well under, take a very light magenta colour (light pink if you ilke) could be 00,10,00,00
Some will be over 100, take a really strong green: 50,00,100,00
When designing for print, many printers will specify a maximum - this is to negate drying issues, bleed, transfer between sheets etc...
You see, CMYK printing, (Inkjet, offset Litho, Laser etc) vary the intensity of each colour on the white page by laying down a percentage cover, this could be fine lines, small dots or other patterns - the percentage figure of each colour is basically the amount of colour vs white space in a particular area.
However....
Pantone colours are what are known as "Spot colours" which are designed to be printed alone, not overlaid with others, and in the Pantone Formula Guides, these ink mix formulas ARE specified as percentages!
You can convert (well emulate) Pantone colours into CMYK for use in other printing processes, but accuracy may suffer.
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