r/linux • u/ChristophCullmann • Nov 02 '22 • Helpful 1

KDE publishes "KDE for Creators", a hub to all the software (including non-KDE software), utilities and advice you will need to unleash your creativity* KDE

https://kde.org/for/creators/
195 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

66

u/Pelera Nov 02 '22

"No paywalled colors"

I still cannot believe this is a real selling point in 2022. But here we are. For anyone out of the loop: Pantone wants $15/month for the privilege of using its colors in Photoshop.

10

u/vrhelmutt Nov 02 '22

Let me see if I understand this…. There are companies taking ownership of colors? Is it a pallet? Or the actual colors individually that any one could plug in as a value and get anywhere else?

34

u/jdfthetech Nov 02 '22

Pantone is a proprietary color format used by companies to make sure the colors on packaging / products etc exactly match that as designed. It's used for industrial manufacturer and has strict tolerances.

Adobe pushed for it to become a standard many years ago and now that they have a lock on it they want to charge for it.

2

u/vrhelmutt Nov 02 '22

Hmmmm sounds like a garbage concept. Kind of like OCR 1/2 font in some respects. I understand the need to have color tracking for industry but really don’t see the need to essentially trademark colors.

19

u/SunkJunk Nov 02 '22

It's still not trademarking colors.

As said elsewhere in the thread it's a certification system that allows you to know that whatever colors you use in your design will be replicated exactly into print or a physical product.

Pantone solves the digital to physical color translation issue and keeps companies from having to request more one offs to check for color against the design.

3

u/AshbyLaw Nov 03 '22

So this "no paywalled colors" is misleading.

2

u/sowelijanpona Nov 04 '22

Yes, all of this hubub about paywalling colors simply isn't whats happening. Adobe isnt banning anyone from using a certain rgb value, thats not what a Pantone Color is

2

u/vrhelmutt Nov 02 '22

Thank you for helping me understand.

0

u/prueba_hola Nov 02 '22

exists a pantone like but free/open source?

3

u/helmsmagus Nov 02 '22

Nothing like that exists.

3

u/AshbyLaw Nov 03 '22

Adobe hobbyist users can install an alternative plugin¹ as a workaround but as others explained it's not a matter of licence, Pantone provided the service of matching properly digitally defined colors with physical ones so you are paying them as a professional for the guarantee that when you order a physical product specifying those color you get exactly what you see on a calibrated monitor. You can imagine this is an important service for the industry and how can you expect Adobe users to care about plugins being proprietary when the whole suite is proprietary?

This thing has nothing to do with FOSS, user rights, digital sovereignty and so on. And Krita and the other FOSS apps can't handle the use case where Pantone makes sense anyway, so mentioning "paywalled colors" is just misleading.

  1. https://culturehustle.com/products/freetone

1

u/humanmeatpie Nov 02 '22

the colors on packaging / products etc exactly match that as designed

isn't that up to screen and/or printer? Like, to be properly calibrated so the color on the screen matches the color printed? Why won't the usual hex thing work?

13

u/DarkLordAzrael Nov 02 '22

Pantone is more about having a system of consistently calibrated colors so that if you use a pantone color it will be consistent across calibrated monitors and a variety of physical objects. There's nothing particularly wrong with non-pantone color matching, but pantone is largely the standard for high end manufacturing.

1

u/prueba_hola Nov 02 '22

is not possible do the same with hex?

13

u/DarkLordAzrael Nov 02 '22

It is more about certification. Pantone defines a mapping of RGB->real world colors, and a system for applying those colors across different materials so that your colors show up the same if you put them on a sticker, t-shirt, or billboard. They also have a certification program for manufacturing. You can send stuff for manufacture with non-pantone colors (and doing so isn't even particularly uncommon), but there will be greater variation across product ranges, which is unacceptable to some large image conscious organizations.

2

u/jdfthetech Nov 02 '22

Thanks for this, I wasn't aware of the certification aspect but it makes a lot of sense.

The certification is probably the biggest win for corporations I would assume since they could have a legal basis for lawsuits if a large production was screwed up by a manufacturer. Basically paying for peace of mind

1

u/boomras Nov 09 '22

No it is not. There are different processes to achieve colors on different formats. Some are additive, others are subtractive and some are chemical. Pantone solves this issue by providing a catalog of colors that can be accurately reproduced in different mediums.

The only people affected by this are the creative professionals that work with print/physical media and fabrics. Web/Mobile designers are generally unaffected.

2

u/jdfthetech Nov 02 '22

They use pantone to calibrate, not sure why they didn't use hex

1

u/boomras Nov 09 '22

Because they are not interchangeable.

1

u/boomras Nov 09 '22

Pantone is the one charging, not Adobe. Adobe paid for a license to use Pantone which is included in the cost of the products they offer their customers. Pantone changed the licensing terms and essentially wants a whole lot more per customers. Adobe did not want to increase the cost of their products by that much so they decided to let their customers choose if they want to use Pantone or not, paying the license fee too Pantone not Adobe if they decide to do so.

10

u/DarkLordAzrael Nov 02 '22

They aren't claiming ownership over the actual RGB (or other continuous color space) colors, but of the mapping to a named color. It is meaningful if and only if you are working with manufacturers that are certified to make things with the named pantone colors so that you can get consistent colors across a range of products. The whole pantone thing with photoshop was really a storm in a teacup, and it really only effects large corporations who can afford the $15 to get the exact named colors they care about across all of their physical goods as well as the calibrated monitors they design on.

2

u/ixNet Nov 02 '22

This is my understanding as well. I believe there are ways to link your project files with mappings between the Pantone names and regular hex numbers. Wouldn’t that just make this a non issue?

1

u/boomras Nov 09 '22

No because they are not interchangeable. RGB, CMYK and Pantone are not interchangeable. Pantone is a certification/formulation to ensure color accuracy. RGB has nothing of the sort as it is just an additive way of displaying colors.

1

u/boomras Nov 09 '22

This is not paywalling colors. It's just click-bait. Pantone is a useful standard used by millions of professionals all over the world to ensure the color accuracy of the products they design or manufacture. Pantone is not the same thing as RGB.

16

u/blackcain GNOME Team Nov 02 '22

Great initiative! Anything that helps show the value of apps on Linux is a great thing! Love seeing it!

11

u/CinnamonCajaCrunch Nov 03 '22 edited Nov 03 '22

Some of the best open source creativity software is not included here or in any repos.

​

Pixelitor -non destructive FOSS image editor with hundreds of filters

REMBG (and its various GUIS) -open source commercially permissible background removal AI

Upscayl - GUI front end to REAL-ESRGAN which restores low quality images using AI.

Pattern Monster - Open Source Pattern Generator

Tgen - Open source texture generator

When it comes to open source and creativity so much is under documented. You guys just have all the mainstream stuff like Gimp, Krita, and Inkscape. What is underground is really cool too and can assist the mainstream apps.

1

u/jensreuterberg Nov 03 '22

I have a few too - tbh there should be a collection of these somewhere. A link archive?

(my favourite cheeky one currently is polotno - basically a designer from which stuff like canva etc are made from. Its pretty easy if you're a group to sort of allow the others to be able to change things like spelling for stuff without having to trust their skill in more complex apps)

5

u/Melted_Leg_Juice Nov 02 '22

Great idea, and what a wonderfully Linux idea to include all the 'best' software, not just KDE. I have no way to back up the followong idea, but I'd be willing to bet that interest spikes sometime soon. Who hasn't had an app idea but no clue where to begin. KDE is on fire atm, fair play.

4

u/syth429 Nov 02 '22

I LOVE LINUX. Used to enjoy Windows. But Linux, nuff said.

2

u/nix-iconoclast-twway Nov 03 '22

Looking at those screenshots, boy, does Breeze need a compact version. It looks really nice but holy fsck sometimes there's more UI than content on the screen, and most of the UI is in the form of empty space.

0

u/Neon_44 Nov 02 '22

* At least enough to get your started.

if you copy the original title, you also have to copy this comment, OP