For a long time now I have wanted to have a full set of Pantone swatches in the Mac OSX color picker. I searched for a quick solution online but never found anything. So in the end I realised that if this was going to happen I would have to do something about it myself…
Stage 1 – getting a list of swatches
Whilst it’s very easy to create a custom color palette and add your own colors to it I had no particular desire to try and enter an entire Pantone swatch book by hand. A quick search online revealed several sites with lists of swatches and their respective rgb values. So that’s great – the difficult part has already been done by someone else! I checked out a few lists and in the end settled on this one: http://en.labelpartners.com/pantone_coated_table.html which gave a full set with hex and rgb values laid out in a <table> just perfect for scraping with php.
Stage 2 – scraping the data into a database
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The next task was to get the data off the webpage and into a database. For tasks like this I always use PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser. It’s very easy to learn – and makes this kind of task very simple.
Before writing a script to scrape the data I set up a myqsl database ‘pantone_swatches’ with a table ‘coated_swatches’ to hold the data. The table structure was as follows:
At this point I wasn’t really sure if I needed the rgb values or the hex values so I decided to get everything just in case.
Now, with the database ready it was time to scrape the data. I wrote the following php script making use of PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser to sort through each table row (<tr>) and get the text content from each table data cell (<td>) and inset as a row in the database:
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Once the script was ready I launched it and waited for it to complete then checked out the new table to see if everything was OK. The script performed perfectly but now, how to get those values into the Mac OSX color picker?
Stage 3 – building a list of NSColors
You can manually create a custom color palette by opening the color picker, clicking on the third tab ‘color palettes’ and then clicking on the small ‘gear’ icon and selecting ‘new’. When you do this the new palette is saved in ~/Library/Colors/ with .clr for its file extension. The first thing I tried to do was open one of these .clr files in a text editor. Once I had tried that I quickly realised it wasn’t as simple as copying the structure and saving a new file! So, back to the internet and a bit more research revealed a way to generate a .clr file using Xcode. .clr files can be generated by creating a new NSColorList object and setting colors, like this:
So now, all I needed to do was generate the objective-c code from the data in the database, the only difference being that the rgb values in the database range from 0 to 255 whereas the rgb values for the NSColor class range from 0 to 1. This small difference was rectified by dividing the database rgb values by 255 and rounding the result to 3 decimal places. The code I used to output the objective-c code was as follows:
Which when executed produced the following result:
Stage 4 – using Xcode to generate the .clr file
To generate the final .clr file I opened Xcode and created a new project of type Cococa Application. Once this was ready I opened the AppDelegate.m file and where the comment ‘// Insert code here to initialize your application’ appeared in the – (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification method I replaced it with the following:
Once that was done I did a build and run and as soon as the application had launched I checked out the contents of my ~/Library/Colors/ folder to see a new Pantone Coated.clr file. The next thing to do was open an app (Sketch.app) and then open the color picker to check out the new color palette!
Conclusion
In hindsight the way I went about this was perhaps more lengthy that it could have been. There’s no reason why I couldn’t scrape the page and generate the objective-c code all in one step missing out the database. But as I was not sure how to proceed it seemed better to store the data then work out what to do next. Anyway here’s a short example that does just that:
There are many sites online with lists of Pantone colors. I also creates a Pantone Pastels, Pantone Metallics and a set of CMYK swatches using the CMYK values and creating the NSColors like this:
resources
- Color Lists
- http://en.labelpartners.com/pantone_coated_table.html
- http://euro-bags.eu/pantone?limit=all
- http://www.ediy.co.nz/pantone-to-rgb
- http://www.umsiko.co.za/links/color.html
- http://color2u.cocolog-nifty.com/color4u/archives.html
- PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser
- http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net
You can download an archive of compiled .clr containing a set of Pantone Coated, Metallic, Pastel and CMYK swatches on my resources page:
Pantone Swatches for the OSX Color Picker
A shocking 30 percent of Glamour readers say they can never find their shade. We investigate the industry's progress—and find you your match.
It all started with an Instagram post. When one of our beauty editors snapped a picture of a new foundation collection and posted it to Glamour's feed, a heated conversation unfolded in the comments section: Followers wanted to know why the brand pictured, like many others, carried a dozen-plus light-to- medium shades but just a handful of dark ones. And @qu33njustine added: 'Not only do I as a black woman have less options but I often have to buy two shades and mix them...to get a match. Still fighting the ashy look in this multicultural world is absurd!' The whole exchange got us thinking—does the makeup counter in 2014 accurately reflect what America looks like now?
Meet today's all-American woman
First let's look at the facts: The U.S. census reports that the number of mixed-race people grew 32 percent from 2000 to 2010; the number of Latinos rose by 43 percent, as did that of Asians (now the country's fastest-growing racial group). By 2050, people of color are predicted to represent 54 percent of the American population. While the melting-pot thing is awesome (and I write this as the first-generation American daughter of African immigrants), the abun- dance of skin tones presents a challenge for beauty companies that make foundation. There are signs that some things are looking up. Big, all-American beauty brands are now celebrating diversity: Janelle Monáe, Sofia Vergara, and Becky G are three of CoverGirl's newest spokesmodels. Estée Lauder has models Joan Smalls from Puerto Rico and Liu Wen from China.
It's a start, but 'there are still holes in the market,' says makeup artist AJ Crimson, who has worked with Fergie and Estelle. 'I can think of only a few brands—MAC, Bobbi Brown, Make Up For Ever—that offer a full range where any girl can find something that works for her.' After poring over hundreds of foun- dations in the Glamour beauty closet, we noticed several shades that didn't quite look like real skin; dark tones lacked depth, pale shades appeared gray. And when we polled 1,000 women on glamour .com, 30 percent said they're never able to find their exact shade. Never.
'People think dark skin is the toughest, but one of the hardest skin tones I ever had to match was Alicia Keys', a warm medium tone,' says makeup artist Ashunta Sheriff, who also counts Jordin Sparks and Amber Riley as clients. 'For years I tried different foundations. They'd be too ashy or too pink.' (She finally found Keys' match in NARS Sheer Matte Foundation in Tahoe.) Sometimes, determining the correct shade is only half the battle—you have to be able to find it in the store too. 'A brand may make a broad selection of foundation, but a store may choose a smaller number of shades,' says Jodie Patterson, cofounder of Doobop, a new multicultural beauty e-retailer. 'In the end, those select colors get discontin- ued because they ultimately don't match enough women.' Hey, beauty companies, we think this is a huge opportunity. A little help here, please! What do we do in the meantime? Well, take a look at the tips below.
Where to spend your money
We're not insisting that you blow your life savings on makeup. But if you have hard-to-match skin, the odds of getting your perfect shade are better if you spend a bit more. In general, according to research firm NPD Group, the best-selling lines at department or specialty stores offer more shades than do drugstore best-sellers. MAC Studio Fix Foundation has the most generous range—40 shades. That's more than double the average of what top drugstore lines offer, with the notable exception of L'Oréal Paris True Match, which has 33.
Those stores have another advantage: 'Buying from a counter allows you to test more,' explains makeup artist Nick Barose, who works with Lupita Nyong'o. Makeup artist Mai Quynh adds, 'Hav- ing an artist help you pick out a color is definitely [another] benefit.' But don't write off the drugstore yet: Mass brands have acknowledged their challenges and are reworking their lines (see a couple of our favorites, at right).
Foundation's new frontier
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Technology is also making the matching process easier. For a quick swatch test, check out the Sephora +Pantone Color IQ tool, which uses a handheld device to take pictures of your skin. Your complexion is assigned a Pantone number, and an iPad app generates a list of matching founda-tions available in Sephora stores and online. (When the Glamour beauty team tried it, the editor with dark skin got 27 recommendations—not bad!— but those with fair-to-medium skin tones had far more choices, about double that number.) Plum Perfect, an iPhone app, analyzes selfies and spits out product picks based on coloring. Then there's Doobop: Its consultation tool includes options to cover every shade, from pale like Lucy Liu's to very dark like Venus Williams'.
Pantone To Rgb
All these smart, outside-the-box moves are making great strides for the beauty industry—and we love that. But there's still plenty of room to grow, as Sheriff points out: 'Every woman wants her shade in one bottle or one product. Why wouldn't they? It should be that simple.