Blurb books: accuracy of spot color in Lightroom 4 vs Photoshop

Within the Blub book module of Lightroom 4, if you want to have a color block or color type, you can specify that color with a color picker that displays the color you've chosen according to RGB values. When I input those exact same RGB values into Photoshop, the color looks dramatically different. Same computer, same monitor, both are Adobe products.
Why is the color showing completely differently in the two programs, and which should I trust of the best approximation of the color I'm choosing?

Do you copy RGB, HSL or Hex to Photoshop?
What's your color space in Photoshop?

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Only 1 spot color of Linked 2-channel Photoshop image appears in acrobat 9.0

I just installed CS 4 design premium. I have a 2-color business package that was created in Illustrator CS2 with 2-color Photoshop links (spot color multichannel files saved as Photoshop DCS 2.0/eps).
When working before in CS 2 my spot color links viewed just fine when I saved the Illustrator files as pdfs (smallest file size default). Now, working in CS 4 with Acrobat Pro 9, type & vector objects show fine in both colors, but the linked files only view with one of the spot colors. If I open output preview in Acrobat 9 the missing black channel shows up.
All I want to do is send my client a final proof. How can get it to appear accurately on my pdf?

Output Preview invokes Overprint Preview. Since the file displays as expected with Output Preview open, the Overprint Preview may be necessary to view the file properly.
In Acrobat 9, the default for Overprint Preview is "Only for PDF/X". Overprint Preview was removed from the Menu list, but you can change it's default in Preferences:Page Display. I'd recommend using "Automatic" which looks at the file and determines if there is anything in the file that requires overprint preview to display. You can temporarily turn off "simulate overprinting" while the Output Preview dialog is open. You can also select "Color Warnings" and turn on Show Overprinting, the content should be painted with a highlight.
Does this work?
If you are sending a PDF to your client to view, they will need to look at the file with Overprint Preview on. They can download Reader 9 which will allow them to turn on Overprint Preview. Reader's default is also PDF/X compliant files, but this can be changed in the same Preferences area.

I made a Blurb book through Lightroom 5, on another computer, backed it up on an external hard drive and tried to import it into my imac. I got the picture files, but could not get the book I had worked on. How do I find my book?

I made a 'Blurb' book using Lightroom on a computer that was not mine. I backed up the book on an external hard drive and then tried to import the book into my imac. I wasn't able to retrieve my book. The photos I used for the book project are there, but the 45 page book I made is not there.
What do I need to do?

You would need to go to the computer containing the book.
Select the saved book in the Collection panel.
Go to Grid View [ G ] and select all the images [Cmd/Ctrl][A]
File>Export as Catalog and store on media you can use to transfer
Bring this catalog onto your computer
File>Import from another catalog and bring the transitory catalog into your master catalog.
It should bring the images, your collections (including your book) and other settings into your own catalog.

Blurb Book in Lightroom 5 on my Mac disappeared after 3 days of work. Where can I find a backed up copy via Time Machine or anywhere else?

Blurb Book in Lightroom 5 on my Mac disappeared after 3 days of work. Where can I find a backed up copy via Time Machine or anywhere else?

Welcome to the WD Community.
1) I assume I can just hook the unit up via USB to my Mac and use iPartiion to reformat the drives, assuming each of the 4T drives will be seen by iPartition as a separate drive. That much seems straighforward.
Yes, and in case you ipartition dont see the unit properly, you can use the disk utilities on your Mac and you will be able to reformat the unit to make it compatible with your system.
2) Is my next step to reinstall the WD software and how do I do that? I've downloaded the Drive Utilities and Securities install apps - I assume I just run these with the drive still connected and that's all I need to do?
Yes, just run the applications.
3) What about the firmware update for Mac - when should I run that??
Normally, firmware updates are released to fix any issues that you might encounter on the drive. the latest one was released on 9/24/2014 and it fixed an issue with the drive dropping off of the list after system wakes up from standby mode.
5) And what about the "My Book Live Duo Setup" app for Mac - is that for a completely different model? What's the difference between "My Book Live Duo" and "My Book Duo"? It's these little things that I find so confusing.
Those are different units. The MBL Duo is a NAS (Network attached system) and the My Book Duo is a DAS (Direct attached system)
6) Lastly, when I have all the software installed, is that when I follow the procedure described in the Knowledge Base article ID 5724, "How to install a My Book Live or My Book Live Duo on Windows (8, 7, Vista, or XP) or Mac OSX for the first time"? Or is that procedure only for "My Book Live Duo" but not for "My Book Duo"??
That procedure is for the network units, not for your drive.

Unnecessary page limit for Blurb book in Lightroom Book module

I'm posting this per Julieanne Kost's request following an email exchange regarding this topic. I am in the process of making a photobook using Lightroom and discovered when I reached page 240 that I couldn't add any additional pages, much to my surprise. I was surprised because I knew from Blurb's website that the limit for standard paper is 440 pages and mistakenly assumed that this limit would also apply within Lightroom. I did more research online and found many others being surprised by this limitation after spending hours and days on a photo book. I will likely work around this by exporting from Lightroom to .jpg and uploading to Blurb, but that will take extra time and effort and reduces the appeal of using Lightroom to create a Blurb book. I had also tried exporting from Lightroom to .pdf only to find that the .pdf format exported by Lightroom is not compatible with the requirements of Blurb.
My recommendation in the short term would be for Adobe to warn Lightroom Book Module users up front that Lightroom's page limits differ from those if going directly through the Blurb website.
My recommendation in the longer term would be for the Adobe engineers to make whatever changes are necessary in the Lightroom code to allow for 440 pages when standard paper is selected (and more specifically to make the page limits match the limits of Blurb's actual books). If there is any way to impress upon Adobe management the importance of this, I believe it would be greatly appreciated by many Lightroom/Blurb users.

I agree with that (though a 330 page Blurb book would break the bank :-)
I would also like to see the LR book module allow at least all the same Cover Templates as Booksmart does - I feel really constrained with both of them but much more so with LR...At least let us Drop a Full bleed finished cover on to the front and back covers!
Lately, I do all the page making in PS, move to LR to manage the page numbering and then export to jpg and ingest to Blurb to make my books...pretty kludgy, isn't it?

When using Lightroom Book module for Blurb book making, why do I keep getting a low image quality message if it's supposedly accessing my large raw files in my library?

When using Lightroom Book module for Blurb book making, why do I keep getting a low image quality message if it's supposedly accessing my large raw files in my library?

I think I've solved my problem with a Google Search. I came across a free slide show generator
(contributions requested) that shows much higher quality slide shows than either iPhoto or Aperture 3.
You click on a folder of jpegs and it almost immediately generates thumbnails and within a few seconds
I can be viewing a full screen, tack sharp, slideshow of all of the files in the folder. Much sharper than
I'm used to seeing.
I think I'll keep the Aperture 3 and use if for the purpose it's intended for in the future. I'll also redo the
image preview files to the small size it started with and then I'll copy all of the files I'm interested in from
iPhoto into a separate folder on another disk. I'll use Aperture to catalog and to perform image manipulations
on but I won't try to use it as an iPhoto replacement. I don't think I'll be using iPhoto much as an image
viewer in the future either after I finish moving my favorite pictures to the Phoenix Slides folder.
The name of the free program is Phoenix Slides. It's free to download and try, free to keep (though I
think you'd want to pay the small amount requested) and fast. My pictures have never looked so good
before.
http://blyt.net/phxslides/
Message was edited by: Jimbo2001

Uploading blog to lightroom blurb book

Hi All,
I have a partial blurb book in my lightroom that I would like to add several blog posts to. Is this possible and how? I know you can do this with the blurb software but I seem to be having problems making it work with the lightroom version.
Thanks!
-Laura

Have you selected one of the templates for Cover?
When you select a Cover Template the spine is pre-formatted for top-to-bottom text.

Can I get a Lightroom 5 Blurb book saved as a PDF on my desktop reloaded into LR to make edits

I made a Blurb book with Lightroom 5 saved it (I thought) in Lightroom and as a PDF on my desktop. When I got a print copy back from blurb I want to make edits. When I went to find the book in LR5 there was no sign of it. How can I upload the PDF version on my desktop back into LR5

I don't think that would be possible. Once you exported the book as a PDF file, that file had all the edits, selections, layout, etc. "baked in" to the PDF, so you can't then reverse-engineer the file so it can be re-opened in the Book module. Also, as far as I know LR doesn't support PDF in the various modules - it can only be used for certain exports that are intended to be used elsewhere.
Do you have previous catalogue backups? Perhaps the book is contained within one?
M

Blurb Book IN LIGHTROOM

I have created a book in LR. At some point I must have deleted the cover. I would like to add it back to the book but can't find a way to do it. Can it be done?

I agree with that (though a 330 page Blurb book would break the bank :-)
I would also like to see the LR book module allow at least all the same Cover Templates as Booksmart does - I feel really constrained with both of them but much more so with LR...At least let us Drop a Full bleed finished cover on to the front and back covers!
Lately, I do all the page making in PS, move to LR to manage the page numbering and then export to jpg and ingest to Blurb to make my books...pretty kludgy, isn't it?

Spine of lightroom blurb book

I am trying to make my first blurb book in LR 4.3. The type on the spine is going left to right instead of top to bottom. How can I change that?

Have you selected one of the templates for Cover?
When you select a Cover Template the spine is pre-formatted for top-to-bottom text.

How can I place a transparent psd into Illustrator CS4 without effecting my spot colors?

So, I'm very naive about printing processes and am working with an online book building company. I've asked them how I need to fix this, but don't expect great advice from their design team.
When saving in Illustrator, I've been receiving the error:
"When spot colors are used with transparency, changing them to process colors outside of illustrator can generate unexpected results."
This effected the printing because it left a halo in the shape of the placed transparent .psd. So I need to know how to flatten the transparent psd or something in order to not have it effect the colors below it.
Thanks!

Thanks Monika and John. I've been working in Spot colors simply because my client has limited my palette for the screen printing we've been doing on ceramics in the past. Now we want this book to match the colors on the ceramics. But if Pantone bridge back to CMYK would work, I'll do it. I have been saving to PDF by making a combined pdf directly from the .ai folder. My links are all embedded.
Is there a way to convert all the colors in the document to CMYK at once? Otherwise I'm looking at a very long week.

Dear Spot Color Printing Gods......... Please Help Me!

Ok so here is my story...
I have been doing graphic design and 3D work for about 7 years. I have NEVER worked in print before, and no NOTHING of color separation or spot color, etc... I am learning all this right now on the fly for my new job, and its not going well. I was hired and expected to hit the ground running, even though I made it clear I did not have any screen printing experience. (I was mainly hired to help with web design) I have had some mistakes doing the color separation (not 4 color) and its costing the printer money to see if I did it wrong or not. The printer has no experience with the software (and only speaks English fairly well), nor does my boss know the software, but they both know how its SUPPOSED to look, and they are getting impatient.. Needless to say, I have to turn to the internet for help, so please be gentle with me not knowing much...
SO....Im a PC user working on a Mac & Illustrator Cs3(I know Mac fairly well). I have learned the basics pretty fast for screen printing. The printer is using spot colors only. After I get the Illustrator file (yes its vector), I delete all swatches except the "Pantone Solid Coated" colors used in the art - or I have to add them from the Solid Coated color book. After that, I would separate the colors by 1) Duplicating the image however many times that there are colors. (So a splat of soup has 3 colors, I duplicate it 3 times with register marks) 2) I remove all the color except the one Im trying to show. (Im showing the green peas, so I remove the red and yellow colors from the other objects) 3) then I make what the printer calls the "Flash" (the white undertone that the paint adheres to on the garment) I make this by taking the art, and reducing the size to 1pt smaller. Once all the colors are seperated, I make each color 100% black, convert the image to grayscale and THEN Im done. Problems I have been running into have been registration marks somehow not lining up and some colors do not end up 100% spot tones.. One other wierd thing is when I convert to grayscale on the Mac, the art work retains its color on the screen. When I tried to do that at home on my PC, the artwork turns gray????
WHEW! So what I am asking for is a fast, simple way to color seperate a vector file and then create the flash. And/or how to create a template that I can reuse, that is ready for me to just drop artwork into for spot color seperation. I have included an image to show you a project I am working on. Its an ice cream spill on a shirt. I have tried to start a template with reg. marks, and that is what you will see here. There are 5 colors that I have to specify. The printer actually told me that I do not need to split up the art work the way I have been, nor do I need to change it to black, and all that I have to do is specify all the colors,(spot colors/100% only) and then the printer does the seperation on the clear film. (it only prints in black) I was also curious why my PC would change the artwork gray and the Mac does not when converting to grayscale. I thank you VERY MUCH for even reading this maddness that is my life right now, and hope you can give me some helpful wisdom to assist and lead me on my journey. The job pays well, and I need the money badly! Thank you very much for any and all help you can give me!
~LiQ

Some misconceptions evidenced in your post.
You don't have to use a Pantone library to create spot colors. Pantone is just one brand of spot color definitions and inks intended for offset lithography; not screen printing. You can define any color you want as a Swatch and then specify it as Spot. A Spot color is simply a color that represents an individual ink that will be physically used in the printing process. Therefore, if you want to please your boss:
1. Get the color chip brochure for the particular brand(s) of screen ink your operation uses.
2. Open Illustrator. New CMYK document. Delete all the Swatches that can be deleted.
3. In the Swatches palette, for each color of your screen inks, create a new Swatch. Use the CMYK sliders to make its color match the ink as best you can. Name the swatch according to the name of the actual screen ink (ex: Nazdar_BrilliantBlue). In fact, the ink manufacturer(s) you use may already provide a ready-made Illustrator Swatch Library for their various series of inks. Check their websites to see.
4. After creating the swatches, save the Library, and/or save the file as a tempate file. Now you'll always have your Spot colors available for new projects.
Now just draw your design and apply the spot colors to the paths as fills and/or strokes. When you print the file as separations, you'll get a separate print for each spot color used. One of the simplest ways to "proof" (test) this is to "print" as separations to the Adobe PDF virtual printer. That will result in a PDF file that has one grayscale page for each ink in your design. That way, you can check what overprints and what knocks out on screen without wasting time or materials. Once confident everything is right, you can then use the PDF to print the actual film positives.
One of your swatches should be a spot white for your underprint. ( "Flash" is not actually an ink color. It's a production step in which a dryer semi-dries an imprinted ink before overprinting it with another. You usually flash a white underprint, but you just as often flash any color with significant density that needs to be overprinted with a following color.) Understand, you don't have to make this swatch actually appear white. For example, I often make it a pale magenta just so I can see it on screen when working with it.
Just because the white underprint is going to be printed underneath the other colors, doesn't mean it has to be layered under your other colors in your Illustrator document. Remember, each ink is going to be printed to its own plate anyway. So it's simpler to just put your white underprint objects on a Layer above the rest of the artwork, and set it to overprint, so that it doesn't knock out the rest of the artwork on layers below it in the stacking order.
Assuming the white underprint has to underprint all the other colors, creating the white underprint should be the near-last step. It's simply a matter of duplicating the colored artwork objects, moving them to the Underprint layer, filling/stroking them with the spot white color and (for efficiency) merging them into as few paths as possible. The Merge or Union Pathfinder commands are typically used for that.
JET

Converting CYMK to spot color?

Alright, i just read the 'how to get help quickly', and will attempt to not let my panic show through too much:
I designed graphics to go into my college's literary magazine. I used only two colors: brown and green (8dc63f and 603913). However, last week he informed us (the magazine production people) that RGB wasn't acceptable, since he was going to print in something called 'spot color'. Never heard of it before, but after reasearching, I think I have a vague grasp on it: basically instead of CYMK printing process, he's just going to have two plates, one with each color, and stamp them on the pages (like screen printing). That's fine, but I don't understand how it relates to my files. So we sent the psd files to the printer's "photoshop specialist" and then yesterday I was informed that there was no way to seperate the colors into pantone plates, and that either the book was now going to be blank (thankfully the cover is going to be printed seperately in CYMK so that's fine), or we could use clipart (!!thanks for discrediting a semester of my work), or I could learn to use illustrator and redesign the whole book by monday.
I panic, obviuosly, because after downloading the trial version of illustrator I realized that it's actually nothing like working in photoshop (where's my tablet sensitivity? this is NOTHING like 'illustrating'), and at the end of last night's terror, this is all i could produce: http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/2993/illustrator.jpg
Now for reference, the image I originally made in photoshop looks like this (when placed on a brown background to simulate paper): http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/7015/photoshopf.jpg
I am very confused, because I don't understand why the printing company can seperate the illustrator file into two color plates, but not the photoshop file. Both use the same colors (Pantone 375 and Pantone 161 C, I've learned). I have no clue how to save ANYTHING in 'spot format', the only difference between photoshop and illustrator is that I can click on the pantone swatch in illustrator.
Obviously I'm ignorant and confused, and I appologise for that, since it only makes this situation worse (who knows if I'm using the right terminology).
tl;dr:
I have a whole bunch of psd files that need to be converted to something called 'spot color format'
the images are graphics to be placed in an indesign file, not to be printed on their own, so really, they have to be in the spot color format.
Is there any way in reality to maintain the quality of these images and convert them into 'spot color format'?
I'm still trying to understand illustrator (I'm really a painter, not a designer -- wtf is a vector), but would love to convert the psd files I already have into something usable. the printer people didn't know how, I don't know how (or even understand the issue), but maybe you will?

I tried this with the image you posted, so I can describe in detail the steps.
From the image menu choose Duplicate to keep the original for reference.
From the Image menu choose Mode > CMYK Color.
In the Channels palette, delete (by dragging to the trash there) all channels except the Yellow and Black channels.
Double click the icon of the Black channel and in the window that opens click on the color swatch, then in the next window that opens click the Color Libraries button, and when the next window opens type quickly on your keyboard 161, make sure the desired color is picked and press OK on this and previous window to apply.
Repeat the same for the Yellow channel but choose 375.
Select the 161 channel (former Black) and press Ctrl + L to open Levels. Drag the middle arrow of Input Levels referring to the original to get similar darkness (to me around 0.30 looks similar shade). Press OK to apply and close.
Hold Ctrl and click on the icon of the 375 (former Yellow) channel to load its shading as a selection, and press Ctrl + Shift + I to invert the selection.
Make sure the 161 (former Black) channel is selected and press Ctrl + L to open Levels again. Move the right (white) arrow of the Output Levels (at the bottom) until the background matches in brightness the background of the original (to me 150 looks similar).
That's basically it based on my quick try with your image. This example should help you understand the basic idea and from there if you like, you can further play with the image if you feel you can make it any better with these two colors.
Regarding Spot colors, the idea is that a printing press uses 4 color plates (in Photoshop represented as the four CMYK channels when the image is in CMYK color mode) to print all possible process colors by mixing these four colors (inks). Spot colors are pure inks in cans and each spot color (ink) requires its own plate. Sometimes people print 4 process color plus an additional spot color for achieving a special effect like gold ink or pure corporate color to ensure color consistency which may not be as good when using the four colors mix. But very often, spot colors are used for printing with less than 4 plates to save money and sometimes for artistic effect with special inks.
Following the above example converts the CMYK document to Multichannel Color mode and you have only a few file formats available for saving in the Save As options. From these, practical ones are DCS and PSD files. Both are OK for printing but you may want to confirm with your printer. However if you want to place Multichannel image in programs like Illustrator or inDesign you have to use DCS.

[CS5] Resolution too low in part of 2 spot color image

This is a 2 spot color book project, no black. I'm having trouble certifying the pdf because of one image.
The image is a bitmap eps in one of the two spots. On top of it is a vector circle with a non-transparent stroke and a fill at 20%, in the other spot color.
When rendered to a flattened pdf the parts with the transparency are 1x1 dpi.
Now I could redo the image in Photoshop, add the circle there and save as a two-color eps of pdf. But is there a way to fix that in Indesign itself?

This is not the illustration but it's similar
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ST2V3FJF
I've made a second channel here for the second spot. Tried to certify this and that works.
So am I right in thinking that you can not use transparency with spot bitmaps?
The tiff option wasn't available for me.

How to convert a PDF's Process Black to spot color

We have been asked to build InDesign templates for a two-PMS-color math book. The design calls for two PMS colors: a dark blue for most text and red highlights.
Because our Math plug-in doesn't work easily with PMS colors (it defaults to Process black), we hope to create all the “blue” text in Process Black. The press PDFs will have two inks: Process Black and PMS red. On press they will print the black plate in our blue PMS color.
This plan works on press, but for non-press use, we also want the PDFs to visually match the blue and red printed book. Ideally we would convert the Black Process ink to a blue spot but I'm not sure if this can be done.
Question 1: Does anyone know of a way to convert Process Black in a PDF to a spot color? Pitstop can convert spot to process, but we want the reverse.
Question 2 (which I may also post in the InDesign forum) Do you know of a way to redefine (or alias?) the indesign black swatch so that it functions as a spot color?

1 - yes, you can do this with Preflight in Acrobat Pro, but it's not on the default set of fixups.
Open Preflight, select "Single fixups" - the wrench icon
Options > Create New Preflight Fixup
Give it a name (e.g. "process black to spot")
Choose the Color category in the upper right
Choose 'Convert to spot color' in the upper left
Define the source parameters in the main panel (in your case, CMYK%, 0-0-0-100 with tolerance 0)
Define the spot color to change this color into, and the alternative space for rendering (i.e. your blue color)
If you wish, add a check to limit the conversion to certain things (e.g. text, vectors, etc.)
Click OK to save the fixup, then click FIX to apply it. To verify the result, use the Output Preview dialog in Acrobat.

Blurb books: accuracy of spot color in Lightroom 4 vs Photoshop

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