Same as Source Printing from Acrobat 9

Question

Hello Everyone,
I'm in the process of testing CS4 for deployment to a large print production environment and I'm seeing some interesting behavior in so far as it's handling of color management is concerned, specifically with Same as Source printing from Acrobat.
I currently have CS2 deployed, and we're using InDesign for page composition. We primarily accept Adobe RGB (1998) and US Web Coated (SWOP) artwork. PDFs are created from InDesign via File > Export, and we have it configured for "No Color Conversion" and "Include all Profiles." As such, our PDFs contain both RGB and CMYK artwork, all of which is tagged with an ICC profile.
In Acrobat 7, we submit these files "Same as Source" to our RIPs (Fiery and Wasatch) in order to preserve the embedded profiles. All of our color management is handled at the RIP. This works quite nicely. We have tested the submissions and the RGB and CMYK builds (color numbers) come through dead on.
With Acrobat 9 Same as Source submissions, we are seeing that the builds are changing, and that we are getting a conversion to CMYK.
-Original PDF file
Raster RGB - 191,45,47
Here are the numbers that are submitted by Acrobat, captured by our RIP:
-Acrobat 7 Same As Source
Raster RGB - 191,45,47
-Acrobat 7 Printer/Postscript Color Management
Raster CMYK- 0,244,245,0
-Acrobat 9 Same As Source
Raster CMYK - 0,242,251,0
-Acrobat 9 Printer/Postscript Color Management
Raster CMYK - 0,242,251,0
-Acrobat 9 Acrobat Color Management
Raster CMYK - 17,248,245,1
So the question is: What changes have been made in Acrobat 9 to cause for it to handle Same as Source print submissions differently? Why is it that our builds are changing when Same as Source has always been how we get "pass through" color from Acrobat?
Has anyone else run into this? From the perspective of a RIP-driven, color managed workflow, this is a serious issue, no?
(This is also posted to the Color Management forum, as it is both a color management concern generally, and an issue specificly related to Acrobat.)
Matt

Answer 1

We’ve done some further investigations into the differences in Same as Source printing from Acrobat 7 and Acrobat 9. For our tests we created a simple InDesign file with two red vector rectangles, one defined as Adobe RGB (1998) and one as U.S. Web Coated (SWOP). This file was then exported to PDF with “No Color Conversion” and “Include All Profiles.” The resulting PDF contained both rectangles tagged as specified, as verified with PitStop.
We then opened this PDF in both Acrobat 7 and 9 and printed to PS files (at the time, the queue for our HP5500PS was selected). Our cursory findings are:
1. The file sizes differs, which suggests that there is a difference right off the bat.
2. The printed artwork differs visually, which is troublesome.
3. In both instances, when opened in Notepad2, the page objects appear to be tagged properly with Adobe RGB and SWOP specified as the objects color space. This, on the other hand, is good.
a.       Acrobat 7
  i.      RGB – Line 3342
  ii.      CMYK – Line 3400
b.       Acrobat 9
  i.      RGB – Line 8406
  ii.      CMYK – Line 8468
4. And here's the biggie: When the PS file created from Acrobat 9 is opened in Illustrator, it says "The document does not have an embedded RGB profile" and it allows for the specification of an RGB profile ONLY. When the PS file created from Acrobat 7 is opened in Illustrator, it says "This document contains objects using both CMYK and RGB color modes. Illustrator allows only one color mode per document. Which color mode would you like to use?" Of course, this PS file SHOULD contain mixed color modes (because it came from a mixed color mode PDF), but only the PS files from Acrobat 7 do. The PS files from Acrobat 9 do NOT. This suggests to us that the PS files (and therefor print data submitted to PS queues as Same As Source) created by Acrobat 9 are not honoring the embedded ICC profiles of tagged artwork.
Does anyone out there have any thoughts or experience? If what we are finding is true, this is a major problem for Adobe's Acrobat 9 print engine.
Matt