How do I trap spot colors?

I have a doc that contains alot of logos from auto manufactureres. I am having it printed professionally and when I save the doc as a pdf my summarry has the warning telling me I have spot colors and that it does not match color profile. How can I QUICLY find the spot colors and do I need to trap these
colors? Working in printing and proofing workspace.

"How can I QUICLY find the spot colors and do I need to trap thesecolors?"
to quickly find the spot colors--turn on separations preview--you will see the spot colors in the list and you can find them by toggling the colors on/off.
you can change them to process in your color pallete by double clicking the spot color and changing it to CMYK or Process (unless the images are embedded)
for 'professional' printing, you should be working in CMYK color space...and...professional printers should have software to deal with trapping!

Similar Messages

Please help me how to take the "Spot Color" in illustrator?

Hi,
Please help me how to take the "spot color in illustrator CS" using vb script (or) java script.
Regards,
Prabudass E.

Prabudass, If you are just wanting to see if the illustrator file uses spot colors - run the Delete Unused Panel items from the default actions. then view the swatch palette in small or large List View. The color names that have a square containing a gray circle (spot) to the right of their color names are spot colors. The following will get the spot color name of an existing swatch named "Color1" and change it to "Nicks Swatch" and will assign the CMYK values stated. if (app.documents.length > 0){ var swatches = app.activeDocument.spots; for(i=0;i<swatches.length;i++){ var currSwatch = swatches[i]; if(currSwatch.name == "Color1") {currSwatch.name = "Nicks Swatch"; var newColor = new CMYKColor(); newColor.cyan = 35; newColor.magenta = 0; newColor.yellow = 50; newColor.black = 0; currSwatch.color = newColor; } }} When this script has run the swatch palette will not immediately reflect the changes to the swatch name until you double click on a swatch and click OK or Cancel in the Edit Swatch dialog. I hope that I have understood your question correctly and that these responses are helpful. Good Luck Nick

Hey guys, I am new to javascript and I am trying to figure out how to add two spot colors to the active document. I am trying to get it to detect weather or not the spot colors are already in the document, and if they are not, it will proceed to create th

Here's what I have so far.
var docRef = app.activeDocument;
if (docRef.swatches.getByName ("CutContour") === 'undefined') {
var spotNameCC = "CutContour";
var cmykColor = new CMYKColor();
cmykColor.cyan = 0;
cmykColor.magenta = 100;
cmykColor.yellow = 0;
cmykColor.black = 0;
// Create Spot
var spot = docRef.spots.add();
spot.color = cmykColor;
spot.colorType = ColorModel.SPOT;
spot.name = spotNameCC;
//var spotNameW = "WEED (r)";
// Create CMYKColor
/*var cmykColor2 = new CMYKColor();
cmykColor2.cyan = 50;
cmykColor2.magenta = 0;
cmykColor2.yellow = 50;
cmykColor2.black = 0;
// Create Spot
var spot2 = docRef.spots.add();
spot2.color = cmykColor2;
spot2.colorType = ColorModel.SPOT;
spot2.name = spotNameW;
Let me know what I did wrong lol I know it has to do with the detecting part. Also, if anyone knows any good websites to learn javascript I would be very thankful. I am not sure what a lot of the syntax means. Thanks!!

Never mind I figured it out. Someone posted a similar question a few months ago on here, damn this forum is awesome wish I had known about it sooner. Sorry if I wasted anyone's time.

CC Library, How do you save Spot colors to it?

Every time I have a spot color and then save it to my CC library, it saves it as a web and CMYK instead. Is there a remedy? I ONLY use spot colors for every design and this is a little annoying.

You can't save it as a swatch.
It will only work if the color is applied to an object and you then save the object to the library.

How can I remove spot colors?

I'm still working on changing a document I didn't create. It needs to be CMYK, but I keep getting error messages when I save it that there is a spot color. I saw one spot color in the Swatches (at least I seem to remember that's what the little dot in the corner means) and I double clicked it and changed it to CMYK. And I selected the one item that seems to have that color and I changed it to the CMYK version. But the swatch still has the corner dot and I still get the error message when I save.
What am I missing?

You need to change both of these to remove the dot.

How to import a spot color image in illustrator

when importing a sport color tiff created in photoshop to illustrator the spot color image is not getting imported properly.

kandasamy:
PSDs will do nicely, and remain editable as well. Don't quite know what you mean by spot color TIFF as spots are not supported in this format.
You should, however, be able to "paint" a grayscale tiff any spot you like in Illustrator.
J

Creating a Spot Color Channel in Photoshop

Can anyone teach me how to make a Spot Color Channel on Photoshop? I am using this image as an example. The blue color in the background needs to be printed mostly with a spot color that is close to the original painting color (ex: Pantone Blue 072C) . But the CMYK color still should be present in within the blues to resemble the subtle nuances of the brush strokes. I can’t figure it out on my own.
For more samples of painting images, please go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/batzorig
The reason I am doing this is because the artist’s works were represented on many publications over the years from many different countries. And we found out that CMYK color alone cannot duplicate the blue color very well (I mean the blue only, no problem with other colors). I know, it is hard to believe, but if you see all the publications and compare it to the original art, you would see the huge difference in color saturation and luminosity. That is the reason, I think it is necessary to use a spot blue for an upcoming catalog of the artist.
It will be a huge help in my work progress if I learn to make the Spot Color Channel. Then I can talk with the printers about this method.

Understanding color space diagrams for CIE(1931) and CIELab isn't easy,
but gradually one gets used to interpret them by intuition.
(1) helps understanding CIE(1931) chromaticity.
The horseshoe contour contains all possible colors with luminance left
out. Indicated colors are just for orientation. Yellow is the 'locus' for
bright yellow and brown (dark yellow) as well. White is the locus for
white and black - colors without saturation at a certain center. For two
colors on the same ray to the center, the color with larger distance is
more brilliant or vibrant.
You're right - adding green and orange ink in Hexachrome doesn't
extend the gamut at the blue side. But Cyan and Magenta (and Yellow
and Black) are different to common CMYK inks as well, and this
delivers more brilliant blues.
(2) shows the effect, now in CIELab in a horizontal slice for constant
lightness. Besides theoretical aspects, the diagram can be (again) inter-
preted by intuition.
The complete diagram is threedimensional. A shown color is not just
a placeholder (as in the CIE chromaticity diagram) but a more or less
correct reproduction, as good as possible, depending on the medium.
It seems indeed that there are few print houses using Hexachrome,
but (3) is one of them.
What's to do for the actual catalog? Printing by inkjet would be a
solution, because inkjets can use additional inks like Green, Orange,
Blue, mostly by replacing standard inks like LightCyan, LightMagenta,
Gray. The inkjet can be calibrated by GretagMacbeth ProfileMaker's
Multicolor Module. That would be very expensive. Even without
additional inks the blues can be reproduced fairly good.
As already said - just adding a Spot Blue would cure the problem
for some paintings, but there is no systematical workflow.
If Hexachrome is not an option, then one may try to modify the
blue in the image by shifting it towards cyan with less lightness,
which is better printable.
Of course wrong, but what finally counts is the impression.
A friend of mine is a famous German photographer for calendars
and tourist guide books which contain plenty images with blue skies.
So far he got almost always pleasant print results - by applying
appropriate image processing with Soft Proofing in Photoshop.
Examples are in (4).
It would be nice, if somebody who is practically working with
Hexachrome or other Multicolor processes could contribute.
About this question:
I don't know if it is about LAB colors or Hexachrome colors.
The CIE (1931) color space appears mainly by two representations:
1. CIE xyY Chromaticity diagram (horseshoe)
2. CIELab = Lab
These are color spaces which contain all possible colors. Spot inks
and primary inks (Pantone, CMYK, Hexachrome CMYKOG) can
be shown in all diagrams.
Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann
(1)
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&as_q=&as_epq=CIE+chromaticity+diagram&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_n lo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&as_filetype=&as_righ ts=
(2)
http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDUQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww. pantone.com%2Fdownloads%2Farticles%2Fpdfs%2Fart_hex_primer.pdf&ei=CTJQUKnOEaWr0QWfg4DoDg&u sg=AFQjCNFx7-5XXealXZGPTQ5ek-A7FWb8gQ&cad=rja
p.2
(3)
http://www.ellerhold.de/index/page/357/subContent/423/index.html
(4)
http://www.fho-emden.de/~hoffmann/labproof15092008.pdf
Edited by author

Changeing Spot Colors to cmyk

I am trying to edit an Indesign cs5 file a customer provided. However some how he used 25 spot colors when making this file. Thats even though he only really has three colors used in the design. So I am attempting to match some of his colors in order to make edits and i need to know how to convert them to cmyk. Also I would like to know how to elemenate all of his unused spot colors so that I can use the over print preview. As it stands I get an error saying there are too many spot colors used to create an over print preview. Before any one recomends that I have the customer recreate it, this customer is old and is convinced he has done everything correctly and refuses to make any changes. In his words " I've been doing this for twenty years and I know what I am doing."

As to the unused swatches use the following
followed by the trash can at the bottom of the Swatches panel.

[AI 10]How to create a Spot Swatch(CMYK&RGB)?

Hi,
Please tell how to create a spot color swatch & add it to the swatches pallette in Illustrator 10.
I want to specify the swatches name,color(CMYG,RGB)& type(Spot or Process).
I tried the following itdoes not give the desired output:
AICustomColor customData;
AICustomColorHandle newColor;
strcpy((char*)customData.name ,"PANTONE 119 C");
customData.c.f.cyan = 0.75;
customData.c.f.magenta =0;
customData.c.f.yellow = 0.50;
customData.c.f.black = 0;
customData.flag = kCustomSpotColor;
customData.kind = kCustomFourColor;
error = sAIColor->NewCustomColor(&customData,&newColor );
AIDocumentHandle document = NULL;
error = sDocument->GetDocument(&document);
AISwatchListRef swatchList;
error = sAISwatch->GetSwatchList(document, &swatchList);
AISwatchRef swatch = NULL;
swatch = sAISwatch->GetSwatchByName(swatchList, (char*)customData.name);
swatch = sAISwatch->InsertNthSwatch(swatchList, 3);
error = sAISwatch->SetSwatchName(swatch, (char*)customData.name);
AIColor aicolor;
aicolor.kind=kCustomColor;
aicolor.c.c.tint = 0.75;
aicolor.c.c.color = newColor;
error = sAISwatch->SetAIColor(swatch, &aicolor);
Please suggest where i go wrong?
Myriaz

I'm afraid this outside of my realm of expertise, having never tried this. Hopefully someone else can lend a hand here.

Trapping problems with spot colors

MAC 10.5.4 CS3
I have had two books present similar problems with one of our printers. Both books are 2 color. The first is 2 spot colors and the second is spot and black. The problem is that the traps are showing up as white. It looks like anything that is trapped has a white stoke applied. One book has headers using the spot ink for the text, in a black box. These are all getting the white outline around the text. The other book has the the darker spot for text overprinting screened boxes of the lighter spot. The overprinted text looks ok.
I had previously posted about the illustrations in the 2 spot book and have been able to take care of the issue regarding Transparency vs. postscript. But as we are still having this issue with some text and there is no transparency used I am wondering if there is some setting I can adjust to fix this.

How is the trapping being applied? Did you set it yourself in InDesign?
I think the default for InDesign is to use an InRIP trapping. And I always thought that was not part of ID's setup.
Maybe I'm wrong. So let me know.

Why does the Illustrator "trap" command trap the same spot colors in opposite ways?

I can not understand how Illustrator decides which way to expand something when using the "trap" command. According to their tutorial it expands the lighter-colored artwork over the darker artwork, unless you choose to reverse traps. But in practise, where two objects of the same color meet, it will frequenrly trap them in one direction in one place and the opposite direction in the other.
Here's an example with especially large traps:
The two yellow items are defined as the same spot color and are a single compound path. There is just the one simple shape of spot red and one simple shape of spot pink.
On the left yellow object, it expands yellow over pink. On the right, it expands pink over yellow. On the left yellow object, it expands red over yellow. On the right, it expands yellow over red.
There is no possible print order of these three spot colors that would result in the correct object shapes being printed the way this is trapped. Is this just a bug? Can anyone explain this result, or especially how to make it work in a useable way?
All objects are spot colors that are cut out from each other so there were no overlaps.

Here's what it looks like with overprint preview:
It still looks wrong.
This view is glossing over how bad it would really look with screen printing, because the inks are much higher opacity than they're previewing here. I suppose that's what you're getting at, that the trapping may be bad for screen printing, but if you're assuming offset press inks that have next to no opacity and will mix together on press, that it doesn't matter which way you trap. Overprint preview makes yellow overprinting pink look the same as pink overprinting yellow. With spot colors in screen printing, that is no where near the case.
But even consdiering that, this trapping is wrong, the final shapes of the objects are changed by the trapping. And the trapping does not appear to follow Adobe's own description of the logic used, or any kind of consistency. Why would it expand yellow into pink in some places and pink into yellow in others?
I've heard the trapping in Indesign is much better, some screen printers open in Indesign to add trapping... maybe I'll look at that.

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.

How can I rasterize a spot color file without creating "border" pixels between areas that are adjacent to each other but should not be overlapping?

We use Illustrator to create circuit layouts. For part of our process, we create an image of all of the layers using spot colors to show the printed layers overlapping each other. We then rasterize the file and send the image through a Matlab routine that performs some analysis of the circuits based on the colors of the pixels.
In some cases, I have created images with areas next to each other, but not overlapping. When rasterizing the image, the rasterizing process appears to treat the borders as overlapping and creates a single pixel wide border between the 2 areas when there is none. This is playing havoc with our Matlab routine.
I can manually go in and remove the rasterized border, however on some projects, this is a very lengthy process. Has anyone experienced anything like this, or have any ideas on how to prevent this?

Would align to pixel grid help?
Left is not aligned, Right is aligned to pixel grid

How do I stop FH Mx from converting spot colors to cmyk on export to pdf

I have Freehand Mxa on my PC. I created a couple of rectangles and filled with two Pantone colors from my swatch pallet.
I exported to pdf and the spot colors converted to cymk. Shucks! How do I stop that?
(When I print directly to my Adobe Distiller print driver the spot colors are retained as they should in my pdf.)
In the Freehand export function there is a setup dialog box just below the "cancel" button. When that opens there is only a drop down button allowing conversion to cmyk and cmyk/rgb. So, I am guessing that is not where I can tell Freehand to leave my spots alone.
What am I doing wrong?
I was going to attach the small test file but the system did allow. Hope my description is enough to render a solution.
-Steve

The only thing you're doing wrong is using FH's PDF export. It creates PDF files that are adequate for viewing online or printing to composite inkjet printers, but it doesn't support spot colors.
There are many more reasons why you shouldn't use FH's PDF export for print work. See this technote for limitations of PDF export.
http://go.adobe.com/kb/ts_tn_13496_en-us
When you need to retain spot colors, print to a Postscript file and Distill.

How do I change an image to Spot color?

I've linked to an image of our logo in a document, but the file needs to be in two color spot before I print. How do I change our logo from a CMYK file to a SPOT one?

You cannot change the color of the linked logo in ID. You'll need to open the logo in the appropriate editor and make a new spot color version, then link that.

How do I trap spot colors?

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