Any special reason for this behavior...?

Question

Is there any special reason why the Process Black shows in ink separation list, when the only black i have is an an object with applied shadow in a hidden and unprintable layer and no other object has black as fill or stroke in any of the visible layers? Thanks for any tips ...

Answer 1

The separations preview is just what it implies - an overview of the inks used in the doc, based on the assumption that the document is going to be printed at some point using a standard process. It doesn't matter, whether the objects are invisible, non-printable or what else. AI has no concept of these things. And you can't print anything without any kind of ink, can you? I really don't see why you think it's a problem.
Indeed?
(When in doubt, pound the pulpit.)
The document is empty except for four squares.
The blue is process global.
The orange is process non-global.
The green is spot.
The black is 100%K.
The black is on its own layer.
The green is on its own layer.
The blue and orange are on the same layer.
Screenshots are from the Output tab of the Print dialog. Mode is Separations. Printer is Adobe PDF.
All Layer visibility on:
Layer containing the green spot color visibility off. Note that the green sep will not print:
Layers containing the green and the black visibility off:
Layer containing the black is off.
The only difference here is that a 40% K drop shadow has been applied to the black path:
The only difference here is that the drop shadow has been removed from the black path:
Clearly, AI does have some "concept about these things." But AI's "concept" about this--like so many other things--is rather illogical.
JET