Pantone is basically so one person can say "I want this colour from this Swatch book and it needs to look exactly like this" and a printer operator 10 steps down the line can look at their pantone Swatch book and know they are matching to the same colour the original person is.
What Adobe displays on the screen is only a representation of that pantone colour in whatever colour space you are using. Monitor to monitor will vary and then actually printing will give another colour again.
There's no way computer software can display the exact pantone colour it is supposed to represent on every screen in the world accurately. Using pantone colours in illustrator, Photoshop etc. Is for reference. There is no CMYK or RGB value for any colour as that will vary across screens.
You would never go to a printer and say I need the colour on this logo to be c-14 m-45 y-89 k-20. You could but the result wouldn't be what you want. You could, however, use a pantone Swatch to find the closest possible match to what you want and ask them to print that, because then the printer can use their own pantone Swatch to match the colour when they print.
mysterylemon t1_j1vsrt6 wrote
Reply to comment by mmmmmmBacon12345 in ELI5: How is that Pantone colors don't have direct RGB counterparts? by ExternalUserError
This.
Pantone is basically so one person can say "I want this colour from this Swatch book and it needs to look exactly like this" and a printer operator 10 steps down the line can look at their pantone Swatch book and know they are matching to the same colour the original person is.
What Adobe displays on the screen is only a representation of that pantone colour in whatever colour space you are using. Monitor to monitor will vary and then actually printing will give another colour again.
There's no way computer software can display the exact pantone colour it is supposed to represent on every screen in the world accurately. Using pantone colours in illustrator, Photoshop etc. Is for reference. There is no CMYK or RGB value for any colour as that will vary across screens.
You would never go to a printer and say I need the colour on this logo to be c-14 m-45 y-89 k-20. You could but the result wouldn't be what you want. You could, however, use a pantone Swatch to find the closest possible match to what you want and ask them to print that, because then the printer can use their own pantone Swatch to match the colour when they print.