Hexachrome software (HexImage 2.5 Photoshop plug-in) was discontinued by Pantone Inc. in the 2nd Quarter of 2008.
Hexachrome is Pantone's six-color color printing process. In addition to custom CMYK inks, Hexachrome adds orange and green inks to expand the color gamut, for better color reproduction. It is therefore also referred as the CMYKOG process.
While the details of Hexachrome are not secret, use of Hexachrome is limited by trademark and patent to those obtaining a license from Pantone.
Printers
Some printers use lighter CMYK "photographic dye" with identical hue, e.g. the "CcMmYK" process, but for a different purpose. These ink sets provide smoother blends (less visible pixels), particularly in bright areas. They usually do not extend the limits of the color gamut of the device, which is still constrained by the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks. In special cases, however, they can slightly increase the color gamut in the near-white areas making the bright colors look "very clear and shiny". Some manufacturers call such printers 6-color-printers, but correctly it should still be considered as 4-C process.
Some inkjet printers have incorporated the same concept of extended gamuts, including printers from Canon (Orange and Green), Epson (Red and Blue), and MacDermid Colorspan (Blue, Orange, Red, and Green, for a CcMmYyKkBORG configuration).
Software
Typically, software that works with Hexachrome does not require a designer to specify the amounts of each ink. Instead the designer uses RGB colors tagged with a specific ICC profile, and as part of raster image processing this is converted using a six-channel ICC profile provided by Pantone.
External links
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