Illustrator messes up my colors using PMS overprint

Have started designing a poster with the use of PMS Warm Red C in Overprint mode.
I always start designing with PMS colors, even though the printing will be basic 4-color printing with no spots, because I've always run into issues with printer proofs and having to back-reference CMYK to PMS is a real pain in the **!
So now my problem is that I have this large text in Warm Red on top of an colored illustration and part of the text is overprinting onto the illustration and looks real nice and dark when doing so. It deepens up the tone of the Warm Red, which I find a little too much on the orange side to begin with, and turns it into a real nice and deep red...
Problem is, when I convert that PMS color into CMYK, the color shifts into a super pale orange! Oveprint Preview mode is on.
Any ideas why?

You need to understand how overprint works. You don’t overprint objects. You don’t overprint colours. you overprint inks. If you have a spot colour above a process colour mix and the spot colour overprints, the result will be all process colours plus the spot ink. If you have a process colour mix overprint above another process colour mix, any ink in the topmost object prints with that value. Only inks not in the topmost object will show through.
On the left, the overprint area contains all process inks in the bottom shape plus the spot colour of the top shape. On the right illustration I converted the spot to a process colour. This means the overlap area will contain all the process colour values in the top object plus all other process colours of the bottom object. This means the magenta value drops from 100% to 75%.
This is why it is important to always define your swatches as they will print. If you are printing without spot colours, make sure there are no spot colour swatches in your file.

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Using multiply effect on illustrator file with 2 color job?

Hi,
Encountering a tricky problem and not sure if its an InDesign fix or an Illustrator fix.
I am working on a 2 color job—pms color + black on a book cover. The cover needs to seperate into these 2 colors.
Also, I need to make a high res and lowres pdf that look like the cover to send out to marketing, sales etc.
WHAT's THE PROBLEM?...
Well, I am creating a collage with black ink vector graphics on top of the pms background. I created this art in illustrator. it is saved as an .eps file. The illos were done by someone who used a white fill to knock out black areas. There is also a wide 50% grey outline around the illustration.
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I brought the illo into InDesign where I created my cover layout.
Looks great, Prints great. Separations appear to be good, although it shows the yellow, cyan, and majenta layer they appear to be blank, so I think it will seperate nicely into 2 plates–PMS + black.
BUT, when I make a pdf, using "smallest file size" or using "high quality print", the pdf it makes does not show the illustrations in the collage. They are kind of beige and dulled out. The publisher needs pdfs too.
Does this at all indicate that this job will not print correctly using this multiply filter, or is it all well and good final product wise, but its just an issue making the pdf? I am slightly nervous I am going to send this off to the printer and they will have some issue.
I am a professional designer of 10 years with lots of print experience, but I have never used multiply in illustrator so I just want to make sure there is no rule against doing this I should know about. Does multiply at all mess with the color separations or is it fine? And how do I get my pdf to come out right? I'm hoping there's some dumb thing I'm forgetting, or a simple fix.
Thanks for any insight you may have!
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I did figure out after posting this that I was using one .ai file and one .eps file—the .ai was showing up fine in the pdf and the eps was showing up screwy.
odd thing though, when I just re-exported using pdf/x–1a settings, now both images appear muddy! but fine when I turn "overprint preview" on. I just don't want my publisher to have to tell everybody to turn overprint preview on...they shouldn't have to do that for editors etc, non design people.
maybe the new "smallest file size" will be fine though since this is a press preset...we'll see.

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We recently purchased a $6000 printer from Xerox which is the 'gold standard' for graphic arts and Pantone approved.
We also have a pantone color bridge. When I print a color using the hex code, the color looks NOTHING like the pantone swatch.
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I suppose I naively figured that spending $6000 on a printer would get us easy and flawless color matching. Xerox says- not so.
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Am I living a pipe dream?
Yes.
More precisely, you are just failing to understand the fundamental difference between spot color and process color.
I want to be able to pick a color from the pantone deck, enter the code, and feel confident that the print will come out 100% the corresponding color.
Not gonna happen, even if you do all the tedious color management setup you can.
The above assumes you are, in fact, talking about matching Pantone spot colors. (Pantone does not just publish spot color swatches, but that is the usual sense in which beginners refer to Pantone.)
A spot color is, by definition, an actual, physical, single ink which is loaded into a press. The only way to achieve your 100% pipedream is to load that actual, physical, single ink into your $6000 printer.
But that's how a printing press works, not how your $6000 printer works. It works by printing four "primary colors" of inks and then arranging tiny dots of them in proximity to each other in order to "trick" the eye into seeing them as a mixture of colors on the page in proportions which try to approximate the spot color as best it can.
But physical inks are simply not accurate enough to actually do that. There are many, many spot colors which simply cannot be replicated by mixing arrays of primary colors of inks. That's what all this "gamut" talk is about. That's one reason why spot color inks exist.
The Pantone spot color matching system is a means by which to consistently communicate proportional mixtures of actual, real, physical inks of known specific colors. All anyone (including Pantone) can do with the CMYK inks (or dyes) in a desktop printer is try to recommend percentages of those CMYK inks to best approximate a match to an actual, physical spot color ink.
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hey i m working on my illustrator and i m having many problems with my swatches
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Hi,
Encountering a tricky problem and not sure if its an InDesign fix or an Illustrator fix.
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Also, I need to make a high res and lowres pdf that look like the cover to send out to marketing, sales etc.
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BUT, when I make a pdf, using "smallest file size" or using "high quality print", the pdf it makes does not show the illustrations in the collage. They are kind of beige and dulled out. The publisher needs pdfs too.
Does this at all indicate that this job will not print correctly using this multiply filter, or is it all well and good final product wise, but its just an issue making the pdf? I am slightly nervous I am going to send this off to the printer and they will have some issue.
I am a professional designer of 10 years with lots of print experience, but I have never used multiply in illustrator so I just want to make sure there is no rule against doing this I should know about. Does multiply at all mess with the color separations or is it fine? And how do I get my pdf to come out right? I'm hoping there's some dumb thing I'm forgetting, or a simple fix.
Thanks for any insight you may have!
L.

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Illustrator messes up my colors using PMS overprint

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