Spot Colors and Transparency

In posters, brochures etc. designed with gradients,(AI10) when saving, I always get the "when spot colors are used w/transparency, changing them to process colors outside of illustrator can generate unexpected results."
My printer wants spot colors and that's what he gets. I use grays a lot 'cause client can't afford colors. He prepares the plates with the required dot intensities which go to another printer who prints all. So far, things have worked out OK. However, I worry when clients want photos included, and I'm not sure what I'm doing is just luck, or the way to go.
I open a .jpg in PS7,duplicate it as grayscale .psd,adjust and drag it on to a 150 or 300 ppi transparent background and save it. It's then "placed" in AI where it's needed and finished there.
With only 1 previous experience working in this manner, the brochure worked fine. So, just what exactly is that darn warning above telling me?
Do I continue to ignore it as I did the first time? Any suggestions for working with photos? I'd like to be more than just "lucky" and not have a failed work as a final product....thanks much...........m

It's telling you that if you are printing full process CMYK, then the spot colors will be converted to CMYK and it's not guaranteed that the spot color will look the same. There is always a shift in color gamut when converting to CMYK. As you are only printing to spot colors or grey, the warning doesn't apply.

Similar Messages

  • Spot colors and Transparency causing Overprint knock-out

    Whenever I create a PDF from InDesign (CS3) I get missing artefacts/items on print production.
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    Overprint preview in ACrobat Pro shows what I need by overprint off I lose info - this causes immense problems at all the pre-pre studios I use.
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    Next, any print service provider who is not in a position to deal reliably with overprints, does not deserve a contract from a high profile client. Rather, find print service providers who are up to the task. A decent print service provider should produce a result that is visually very very close to what you see in Adobe Acrobat Pro having turned on Overprint Simulation and Output Preview. If the output from a print service provider suffers from missing portions or other artifacts (as those that can be seen when Overprint simulation and Overprint Preview are turned off in Acrobat Pro) then that print service provider is simply failing.
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    Olaf Druemmer
    PS: ... or would you accept a week old bread rolls from your baker?

  • Pantone spot colour and transparency don't work together

    Using indesign CS5, I make a pantone solid spot colour background.
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    Spot colors and Transparency do not play well together, but can be used together if you follow some rules.
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    x1/a pdf does not support transparency, hence it was lost. In my environment, Press Quality PDF has never failed me, but High Quality and x4 have added benefits of Color Management.
    Search for Yucky Discolored Box Syndrome - read the results from InDesign Secrets

  • Problems with spots colors and printing

    Hello everyone,
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    I tried putting the text on another layer but it didn't change anything. The only solution that has worked so far is changing the spot color, reflex blue, to a cmyk color. Here is a screen shot of the problem and some of my export options
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  • Indexed color and transparency in PNGs

    I'm working with a software developer who is revising his subtitle rendering application to meet my company's specifications. The renderer produces an image sequence, and we agreed on using PNGs with a transparent background as the format for the image sequence. The renderer is producing PNGs in Indexed Color mode, so Photoshop and Windows Photo Viewer recognize the transparent background, but Premiere Pro CS5.5 and CS6 don't. I can re-save one of the PNGs after switching it to RGB mode in Photoshop, and then Premiere Pro recognizes the transparency. I'm not surprised by any of that. What I am surprised by is that the software developer says he can import the same PNGs, without switching to RGB mode, into his copy of Premiere Pro CS3, and Premiere recognizes the transparency.
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    PNG's need to be RGB.
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  • Finding spot color and process color

    Dear all,
    I used the following code to find the spot color used in the document.
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    Also please help me finding out the Process color used in the document.What is the diffence between these two ?
    Regards,
    Sanat

    Sanat,
    Even if a color is Spot, it still has to have CMYK or RGB values (depending on the color mode of the document) to tell Illustrator what color to display it as.
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  • Special color and transparency

    Just recently I encounter one problem in Illustrator. Text in special pantone color applied on the background and used drop shadow. After I converted to PDF using print ps and distilled. But in the PDF, i saw some white parts came out on the text instead of pantone. So I tried another method using export PDF. The result looked fine but it came out again after went trough the RIP. (We used Fuji celebral workflow).
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    Sounds like a transparency issue. Here is an InDesign tip that also applies to Illustrator:
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  • Is it possible to add and adjust css3 box-shadow and its effects... color and transparency with mucow?

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    You should be able to do those things with a mucow.
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  • Export to PDF and Spot Color Reg Marks

    This sounds like a simple problem but I have not been able to find a way to do this.  When I create a document in ID with 2 spot colors and then export to a pdf and add registration marks (or crop marks) at this stage, the reg marks are created as the spot colors in the document AND Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black.  I am outputting to a RIP to generate printing plates.  This is a problem because I will get six plates (four with only reg marks) rather than just the two I need.  Is there a way to add the reg marks in the export stage so that they are created as only the colors that are present in the document?

    Add a slug around your document (File>Document Setup>Show Options)
    If your bleed is 3 mm and you want to add 5 mm crop marks, set the slug to be 8 mm all around
    On the master page make a line at .25 pt and place this outside the bleed area and touching the slug line
    Do this for all master pages.
    Set the stroke colour to registration.
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  • Mixing Spot Colors & Spot and CMYK

    My recent project required the use of two spot colors, one resting on top of the other one. But, when the project went to press, the top spot color - used on a font, looked horrible against the spot color - used for the background color. Not at all like the file. I would guess that these two colors mixed and created a different effect than intended. How can I prevent this in the future? How do I set up my InDesign files with this in mind?
    Also, the same situation as above, but mixing spot colors and CYMK (one on top of the other). Suggestions, ideas, do's and don't? How do I set up my file correctly?
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    It sounds as though you had unwanted overprinting of spot colors. And if you previewed the file with Overprint Preview, you could have seen this undesired effect. Did you see a contract proof of project before going to press? If so, did the proof have the same undesired result?
    As for mixing 2 inks... you can do this, but you really are not creating a 3rd spot color. With 2 spot inks already created in the swatch panel, select New Mixed Ink Swatch from the flyout. Here you can select any inks and the percentage mix to create many variations.
    --Looks like Robert and Ozzwoman beat me to it--

  • 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.

  • CMYK layers showing up when spot color illos placed in InDesign CS3

    When I place an Illustrator CS3 (13.0.2) illustration into InDesign CS3 (5.0.3), Preflight tells me that CMYK colors are being used, even though the imported illustration has only 2 Pantone spot colors matching those used in the InDesign document (the 2 spot colors show up in Preflight as well). I double-checked to make sure they were spot colors, not CMYK. When I go to Separations Preview, my 2 spot color show up but nothing shows on the CMYK layers. I deleted all unused color swatches in my InDesign file (and the Illustrator file), and when I delete the illustration Preflight just shows the 2 PMS spot color that I'm using in the document. I'm using Mac OS 10.5.4 on a brand-new Quad-Core Xeon, if that matters.
    I've tried saving the illustration as both AI and EPS, and using CMYK and RGB color modes. I deleted all unused color swatches from both Illustrator and InDesign. For another test, I created a fresh Illustrator file that just had a box in 1 spot color and placed it in a fresh InDesign file, and again Preflight said that CMYK was being used. Besides the usual work-around of telling my service bureau to not output the CMYK film, does anyone have any idea of how to correct this? I've encountered it several times. (BTW, my service bureau didn't know what the problem is).
    This is my first visit and post here, so if I have violated some forum etiquette, please forgive me.
    James

    Save a PDF and place that.
    Bob

  • Can I have "All spots to process" checked at all times, even for new spot colors?

    When I check “All spots to process” in the pdf export settings and save my settings the settings remember that I've checked this option. But, if new spot color objects using new spot color swatches are added to the document (or another document) and I go into the pdf export settings the check mark has been changed into a dash (with the actual checkbox highlighted) – signifying that only some of of the spot colors will be changed to process colors during export. I absolutely fail to see how this could possibly be seen as a feature and not a bug … if the user has checked “ALL spots to process” wouldn't the user expect ALL spots to be converted to process colors, rather than just any spot colors that happened to be in the document that happened to be open when the user first checked that checkbox and saved that setting?
    Am I missing something here? What's the point of even having that checkbox as part of your saved export settings if it doesn't include any other spot colors than those used when saving the settings?
    What's the point of having settings if you can't trust them, and still need to manually "override" them every time?
    I see that some users have taken to writing scripts that instead turn all spot colors in the swatch panel to process colors, and while I commend them for creating that workaround, I'm still pissed at Adobe for not getting the function right.
    If this is a feature, who is it for? People who want to add just certain spot colors and turn those into process colors rather than turning all spot colors into process colors are surely better off doing that in the swatches panel, where they're in total control of what's what. And if they don't want to "permanently" change their spot colors to process colors, and prefer to (temporarily) convert them during exporting/printing only, they can do that in the ink manager. But when someone checks convert "All spots to process" couldn't we safely assume they really want ALL spot colors to be converted and not just some of them? I mean, the way that checkbox behaves now, it's like it's a button and not a checkbox. As in: hit the button "All spots to process" to switch all currently viewed spot colors to process colors in the ink manager, OR check the "All spots to process" checkbox to always convert ALL spot colors to process colors during exporting/printing.
    Anyone got any light to shed on this?
    And is there a way to actually get the advertised behavior, because if you have to run a script every time you export/print you might as well just manually select the checkbox every time instead, but either way it's just really unnecessary as far as I'm concerned … Adobe should get the feature right instead.
    If you save a setting and recall it, it shouldn't be possible for that setting to change into something else (in this case changing a checkmark to a dash).
    Clearly CMYK printing is the norm, so for most users it would make a lot of sense to have the "All spots to process" checked most of the time, and then you just go into the swatches panel or the ink manager and set things correctly for those print jobs that really do need spot colors.
    I myself am not one of those who add spot colors to my swatches unless I'm really using them as spot colors, but I often work with magazines and folders featuring adverts made by whoever, and typically there's always at least one advert that features spot colors, and therefore it would be very nice if the "All spots to process" feature actually worked as advertised without any required actions from me.
    We stopped sending ads back to the advertisers for adjustments a long time ago, unless we absolutely had to, because there were so many things wrong with so many ads that it was simply too much work to write back and explain everything to people who most of the time didn't even understand what we were talking about. We found that it was usually a LOT faster and easier to just adapt the ads ourselves, as long as it was something that could be worked out really quickly from within InDesign itself, which pretty much included most typical errors.
    But with this feature I find Adobe is trying to make my job harder rather than easier, and it's pissing me off. Arrrghh… ;-)

    But It's not a preference it's a shortcut
    It's a bad joke, is what it is. ;-)
    So, why in your opinion should it be presented the way it is? I keep saying in it's current functionality it shouldn't be presented the way it is (and that: if it is, it shouldn't work the way it does). If it's not a preference or even a proper checkbox, why present it that way?
    If you put it right next to the table at the top of the window (so that it's directly associated with that information, rather than information right above it) and just called the checkbox “Spot(s) to process” and had it only visually reflect the content of the sleected spot colors in the table, then I'd see your point with likening it to the “Hyphenate” checkbox.
    If a story has two selected paragraphs that uses two different hyphenation settings then the checkbox should present the way it does now, but if you hit the checkbox so that both paragraphs now use hyphenation and create a third paragraph inbetween the two previous ones it better inherit that setting and not turn off hyphenation for the new paragraph (unless of course there's a defined next paragraph style that switches to a style with hyphenation turned off). And if that checkbox said “Hyphenate all paragraphs” instead, then I would expect it to do just that, and not just the selected ones, and not just the current paragraphs but quite literally all paragraphs even newly created ones – otherwise it doesn't do what it says it does, and simply shouldn't be labeled that way.
    And seriously bad interface design aside, you'd have to rename “All spots to process” to “Switch all currently displayed spot swatches listed in the table above to process” to actually describe what that checkbox does. So even if you're a fan of the current functionality, as opposed to one that actually lets the user set and forget a setting like that, and think it's better that users manually check it repeatedly (which I'm not saying that you are, but you're not giving me any feedback suggesting you even see my point of view with any of this, so what do I know?), then why wouldn't you still support an interface that visually matches/signals that functionality better? If it's a “Select all” checkbox supplementing a table containing a column of checkboxes, then present it that way. Don't put it at the bottom of the window next to another checkbox that works just like a regular checkbox and label it “All spots to process” – because that way you are signalling a different behavior.
    Seriously, if I was to do design using the same mentality that Adobe uses when designing their user interfaces it wouldn't be long before I lost all clients. There's a lot to be said for de facto monopolies, I suppose. Oh no, there's nothing wrong with the design, just as long as you accept it on it's own terms and don't compare it to anything relevant, and just as long as you give people enough time to understand and accept it … and surrender to it.
    For real … I wouldn't win one single pitch that way.
    Today's threads have in many ways been a thorough reminder of the following quote from the second link I provided:
    Is there an Internet rule yet stating that even the most obviously indefensible mistake will eventually be defended by someone somewhere? Awful marketing efforts get explained as genius viral campaigns, broken features become solutions.
    And whether or not you're able to see my point of view or not is really besides the point too.
    The real point was, and remains to be:
    That for those who receive lots of ads or other external files that may or may not contain spot colors it would be far more useful to be able to set a checkbox to always convert all spots to process when exporting, than the current functionality is (and I'm not suggesting eliminating the current functionality, just change so it's presented like what it really is, and then just let that separate checkbox do what it says) … causing unnecessary manual action on the user's behalf shouldn't be the business of Adobe – preventing it should.
    And here's further reading on the subject of bad Adobe interface design for those who might feel so inclined. ;-)
    Cheers!

  • How to find out that an art item has spot color using script?

    Hi all,
    I have a number of art items on a document, some of them are filled with spot colors and some of them are with process color.
    Is there any method by which I can find out which color type(spot or process) is applied to the selected art item?
    Thanx in advance...

    Thanx for the reply carlos....
    But I am not able to use "icolor.typename". There is nothing like "typename" showing in the properties.
    I am using it like this:
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  • InDesign Workflow with spot colors only

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    I have never seen ID slow down with spot colors, but, I have not gone past CS5.5 nor do I work with OSX, both of which have many threads releating to screen draw times, and general lag.
    SproetS wrote:
    Please can someone explain me why InDesign treats working with four spot colors differently than working with CMYK? They are just four colors or channels, right?
    I would suggest working mostly in Overprint Preview when working with Spot Colors.
    What is the difference between Cyan or PANTONE Reflex Blue?
    Excepting that they are both defined colors...everything about them is different.
    Consider this - c, m, y, k are all spot colors. They are base colors, not different (to me) than Warm Red, Rhodamine Red, Reflex Blue, Pantone Green, Pantone Purple, Pantone Violet, Pantone Rubine Red, there are a few others..
    In you color pallet, Yellow is not a spot color - it is a mix of (typically) y and 0~20% m.
    Same for each color in the default pallet - 0~100% of c,m,y,k
    It is true that 99% of the time CMYK is used.
    Many spot colors cannot be accurately reproduced in the cmyk spectrum. 
    It is also true that you can work in CMYK and tell the printer to put a different ink instead of the a Cyan, Megenta, Yellow or Black ink. The project I work on now involves four Pantone spot colors and a few illustrators how need/want to see what they are doing, so...
    Those days are gone. You would need to be more familair with the hammer and screw approach to avoid overprint mistakes, tints are not the same as transparencies, many hurdles here that have long been forgotten. What you would see on screen would be nothing near to the actual project. 
    It should be determined before preceeding if the project will be printed cmyk or as 4 spot colors.

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