If you open up a PSD file and find areas of the image filled with black, your immediate reaction is probably to panic. But not to worry, if this happens there’s probably a very simple (yet costly) explanation. From now on, Adobe is no longer licensed to use Pantone’s colors. So what does this mean exactly? Adobe has begun to phase out all the Pantone Color Books from its software which includes Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. If you have any Pantone colors in your work, even in old files from 20 years ago, you will get a message telling you that areas that have those colors will be rendered in black.
Pantone first partnered with Adobe in the ‘90s to embed Pantone Color Libraries within the core Adobe Design applications. Since 2010, the Pantone color libraries within Adobe’s apps have not been updated. Pantone says that the color libraries are “significantly out of date and missing hundreds of new Pantone Colors”.
It’s not ideal as you can imagine. However, there is a solution: you can subscribe to Pantone Connect for $15 a month. And there are rumors of other less ideal workarounds too, though, of course, we wouldn’t like to officially endorse those. [Via Kotaku]
