SPOT to PROCESS: CS3-JS

Hi All,
How to convert all SPOT to PROCESS in swatch using CS3-JS?
Without changing the default swatches [Paper,Reg...]
Thanks in advance.
Sam

Hi Sam,
Use the below code to conver:
SPOT to PROCESS:
app.activeDocument.swatches.itemByRange(4,app.activeDocument.swatches.length-1).model = 1886548851;
PROCESS to SPOT:
app.activeDocument.swatches.itemByRange(4,app.activeDocument.swatches.length-1).model = 1936748404;
Regards,
Ramkumar .P

Similar Messages

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!

Spot and Process colors - Color Mode confusion?

I have a question about how to choose colors in the New Color Swatch window. I think that I understand the difference between spot and process colors, but the dropdown options confuse me because whether I choose Spot or Process in the Color Type dropdown, the same list of libraries appears in the Color Mode dropdown. How does that work, or why does that happen? Is it a conversion? For example, if I choose Process as the Color Type, but then choose Pantone Solid Coated in the Color Mode, it shows me the colors available, but aren't the Pantone libraries for spot colors? And if I choose Spot as the Color Type, but then pick CMYK in the Color Mode, it gives the CMYK sliders. But shouldn't I be forced to pick from a Pantone library for a spot color? I would appreciate any explanations of this as I want to make sure that I pick the appropriate colors for my printed projects. Thank you!

You can create a spot color with a custom CMYK mix (and even name it the same as a library color if you want). The utility here is that you can create a custom spot color with a custom process conversion, or use your own own conversion numbers for one of the book colors if you think you have a better mix. I recently had to do a special mix for a Pantone spot conversion to fit a particualr press in order to get a better match to some other materials. That's how we handled it, though I did it by aliasing the pantone swatch to my custom spot and then changing that to process in the ink manager, rather than messing with the library color directly, which meant I could have either the custom or the book values, depending on the settings I chose, if the job went to another press.
There are, I believe, four sets of process libraries included in ID. The Pantone Process libraries are sets of stepped percentage mixes of the four process inks and have names that start with DS followed by some numbers. I think TrueMatch is a simialr system, though I've never worked with a printer who used it. Pantone Color Bridge and Solid to Process libraries are both process simulations of the Pantone Solid spot libraries. The Color Bridge is newer, and I think is largely replacing the solid to process.
You can get printed swatch books for any of the included libraries (spot and process) and you should do so for any library that you are going to use to specify color. Spot colors in particular may not render well on your monitor, and the press operator couldn't care less what you see on your screen. He's going to pull out his swatch book to verify that the color he puts on the page is the same as you specified.

'All spots to process' Checked automatically. Please help

Hi,
I recently sent a job to print which was supposed to have 1 spot colour. It came back from the printer 4-colour with no spot and when I ckecked the artwork 'All spots to process' was checked in the Ink Manager.
I definitely did not check the box as I wasn't even aware of it and previous versions of the document show it was un-checked.
Is it possible to turn this feature on by default/automatically/by accident!? Could I have activated it elsewhere in InDesign?
Thanks
Ian

Hi lan,
Me also faced same problem i think this will be helpful to you
Just run the script before exporting the pdf file all spot colors will coverts as a CMYK
Say BIG "thank you" to Jongware. This is his script
app.activeDocument.colors.everyItem().properties = {space:ColorSpace.CMYK, model:ColorModel.PROCESS};
For more details see below link
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/732362?tstart=0
Regards,
Siva

Spot to process grayed out

Thought I'd write this up in case it helps anyone. I've just spent most of the afternoon trying to find the solution, when it actually takes about 30 seconds once you know it.
The problem: Mac OSX 10.6, ID 4. On exporting a document to PDF, the "all spots to process" check box is grayed out, which creates unwanted spot colours in your PDF.
The solution: After trying various colour profiles, modifying the joboptions and generally going around in circles for ages, the solution is simply to save a copy of the document and use the copy. Obviously it's some sort of corruption of the original file, which is corrected when saved as a new document.
Hopefully, next time this happens to me, I'll remember the solution, or at least remember that I posted it here!

Never Mind, I figured out. I was trying to change the spot swatch option that is in a placed file, linked. When I embed the file, or open the original and paste in the artwork, then I can change the swatch options from Spot to Process.

[JS] CS4 - Convert all spots to process

I have what is probably a very simple question. How do I get a script to convert any of the Swatches Spot colors to CMYK?
Any help would be huge. . .

How indeed.
InDesign doesn't work with 'colors' by default; if you use a spot or process color, it gets added to the Swatch panel. Now, one way to reliably iterate over all swatch items is using 'everyItem' -- a very handy function, which I'm using more and more instead of looping over an object array. It's description is not that useful ("Returns every Xxx in the collection" -- how? what do you get?) so, usually I just try.
It didn't work because the spot/process property is just found in "Color" (under the name "model") -- not in Swatches and Inks. At first I tried to sneak around this, using a try..catch (so InDesign picks up the error and continues on the next line) and then with 'hasOwnProperty('model'). Fortunately, you can loop over just the colors.
It's just a matter of trying the first thing you come up with and reading the unavoidable error message very carefully :-)
Are you by any chance working with a Windows machine? My own version of the Javascript help (found here) also displays parent/child relations in a graphic form, and that's quite often useful. (Windows, because for the Mac I only have it as HTML.)

"All Spots to Process" a joke!

Using the "All Spots to Process" option in the Ink Manager box seems to be a complete waste of time, and has created 10 times more work. Since we've started using InDesign (we were religious PageMaker users) we have been taught to start with spot colors and them let InDesign change them to Process if we convert the job to a CMYK job. Up until now, it worked fine....or so we thought.
We recently (ok, well 2 years ago) bought out another company and obtained all of their digital files. The problem we had from the start was that our colors never matched. We didn't retain a single employee from the other company as it was from a different state. So we didn't know how they output their plates.
We just now found out why the "All Spots to Process" is a complete failure for a option. We had a gradient screen that went from what they called "CYAN DARKER" which was a mix of C-100 M-40 to Reflex Blue which showed a mix of C-100 M-73 Y-0 K-2. Both colors were designated "Spot Colors" Ok, fine. But when you viewed the separation preview, with "All Spots to Process" clicked, the middle of our gradient dropped the Cyan value down to 75%! When we manually changed the two Spot Colors to Process, the Cyan stayed at 100% across the entire gradient. Something that we didn't realize was happening but made our product look much more similar to the product that was carried over from the old company.
Anyone have any thoughts on the issue! Made my life a lot more time consuming, but now we can achieve the colors that we need to.

There is nothing wrong with the 'Spots to Process' functionality, it follows the rules...
It was the previous designer who didn't! They should not mix blends of Process and Spot except very rarely in a 5+ colour job maybe.
What might do the trick for you is to select 'Use Lab values' in the Ink Manager, that will apply a much more saturated colour conversion.
Another issue might be general colour management, has it been done correctly?
If you have good colour management procedures and settings in place and you use the Lab values, you should get acceptable results.

Considerations when designing for spot vs. process color?

I'm helping a friend start up a clothing business. It's just him, and I'm providing some computing knowledge.
He is the designer and has been building his first set of graphics using AI.
He's selected the first two "printers". He ran into some price differences with a vendor that used spot colors vs. one that was process. I could give him a basic understanding of spot vs. process, but ran out of understanding when it came to questions like "Why the price difference?".
Would appreciate some explanation for things like "What kind of printers would shops with spot be using vs. those that do process?", "As the designer, are there reasons he would choose one method over the other?".
He will be producing both embroidered and printed media on different fabrics (cap, 2-3 different quality cloth). There will be different colors (for a particular design), and the size and location of the print/embroidery will vary (on the garment). All in all, there will be less than 12 variations each for color, size, and 12 location.
Along with the spot/process question, he's also being asked for different formats than he'd expect. Given my understanding that AI produces vector, if a vendor (the embroidery shop) asks for JPEGs, are they assuming he's done the scaling?
Will continue to do online searches and will post back if I figure this out.
Tom

The print shops should be able to explain the price difference and which one is more durable (depends on the printing process). Probably the one using spot colors does screen printing.
Regarding the embroidery: you should definitely clearly communicate which size the embroidery should be. It can be scaled within some limit, but you shouldn't rely on the service people interpreting the graphic's size and resolution.

INDESIGN CS6 : wrong spot to process conversion using L*A*B system

The separation process of spot colors (PMS) using the L*A*B values is completely out of range with my ripping system (polkadots). Previously with CS5 and the CMYK process, PMS 300 was broke with C100 M56 Y00 K00 values.
In the new CS6, the same Pantone is broken with C100 M65 Y28 K00 values, which is completely out of the range. I encountered the same error on a very big job, which cost me 1 ton of paper…
I tried to force the CMYK separation in the INK MANAGER menu, but it doesn't work properly.
Is there another way to fix it ? Is there any chance to go back and use a good, reliable, CMYK separation system with CS6 ?

Now maybe we should talk about your color management. In theory the LAB mixes should be working better than book values, IF you have the correct color profiles in place for your equipment.
Are you sure about the 28% yellow—I don't see that much yellow with any document CMYK profile.
The conversion from the Lab values depends on your document's CMYK profile and the Color Setting's Conversion Options. Europe ISO with Relative Colormetric and Black Point Compensation turned on returns 100|58|0|0, while US SWOP Perceptual with Black Point off returns 100|65|13|1. So as Peter mentions you have to have the correct profile in place for Lab conversions to work.
I'm working with ISO coated V2 profiles, based on FOGRA, modified ISO 12647-2, specific profiles for printers, designed to limit inkage up to 300%. My RIP is working with the document profile, but has no device link installed.
Thanks anyway for your help, that's fine, works good !!!

Spot to Process Color in Page Maker

Hello Everyone.........
Can anyone help me in changing spot colors to Process Colors in Page Maker. I'm new with this.
Thanks & Regards

double click the color.
In color options click on spot and change it to CMYK

Mulit-colored artifacts using Spot Healing Brush-CS3.

This is the first time using this tool. Not sure what's causing this (see attached screengrab of tiff image captured at 200% view). These colored artifacts happen only after using the Spot Healing Brush tool in CS3 AFTER I save, close and reopen the tiff file. I have compression turned off saving scanned image as a tiff.
Is this possible file corruption? I'm thinking it may be from using a soft brush but don't understand why it would only show up after a save, close and reopen. It doesn't show up right when I apply the edit.

R_Kelly, I appreciate your attempt at explaining this. But I think you should know after I scanned the old B&W photographic print as a 16bit RGB tiff, I selected out the red channel, converted the image to grayscale and edited to final tonality. After that I converted to ProPhotoRGB (dithering off-16bit), duped the image and applied a sepia effect using Photo Filter on one copy, another sepia colorization in Variation on the other and combined the two blending at 50% opacity. (Note: to add this sepia effect I was forced to work in 8 bit, but these artifacts showed up even in other scans of old B&W photos in 16 bit color).
There was no clipping of data in the mid-range where these artifacts showup (and no where else in the image using this tool as well-just this one spot on the face). There was a minimal amount of clipping in the red channel highlights from small specs scanning 100 year old paper.
I did a google search on this and it doesn't seem to be prevalent which made me wonder what was going on. One RetouchPro.com thread shows up mentioning artifacts associated with Spot Healing Brush but no specifics on what type of artifacts. I posted over there and no one confirmed this was typical behavior of this tool as well.
So I'm really only concerned in knowing if this is normal behavior from this tool and not corruption of the tiff file. I found a workaround to noticeably reduce these artifacts by working on a layer set to 50% opacity. It appears setting the SHB panel option to "Create Texture" makes it worse compared to "Proximity Match".
This is a VERY handy tool for smoothing paper texture and film grain in scanned enlargements of old photos without making it look like smooth plastic.

Raw File processing, CS3 vs Lightroom

Why didn't Adobe include its much better RAW processing software found in CS3, when it created Lightroom?

> Lightroom is exactly the same code as ACR with exactly the same options ...
I suppose ... but ACR's highlight and shadow indicators are relative to the color space chosen for output, which is my only gripe regarding Lr's raw developer - no judgment of the color space, and which output space would be necessary to contain the entire color gamut. Not always an option anyway -- real world colors and all, but it would be a professional grade tool with respect to the image's color gamut.
my $CA0.02 :)

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.

Spot color to Process color conversion

I have a book that my boss is wanting printed. This book is filled with RGB / Spot colors. I've discovered that if I go to the "ink manager" I can check the box "All Spots to Process", but the strange thing is after doing that I check in my swatches pannel and discover that nothing was converted. What's up with that? I also found a handy script for converting all RGB colors to CMYK, but I have yet to locate a script to convert all spot to process colors in the swatches pannel. Anyone know where I can get a script for that?

If you are using OSX try this AppleScript:
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"
    tell document 1
        set accurate LAB spots to true
        repeat with a from 1 to count of every color
            try
                set model of color a to process
                set space of color a to CMYK
            end try
        end repeat
    end tell
end tell

Spot Pantone to CMYK processed with ease?

Hi,
I am placing a series of graphic art samples that consist of
Pantone spot colors into what will be a CMYK (processed color)
document for a presentation.
How can I convert all the samples that are Pantone assigned
color to CMYK easily?? Is there a broad selection sort of solution
because these are detailed & I don't want to have to
individually click each & every element by hand + click on the
color mixer to convert...that would take ages!
Surely you've got the answer? -- Thanks!

r_tist wrote:
> Judy, I will indeed be printing to an imagesetter. So
your advice is to trust
> Acrobat Distiller & hand over to the printer with
the settings you specified
> and that will be good enough? -- Do you recommend this
particular method
> because it will save a bunch of time vs. the conversion
process & providing an
> .EPS?
>
>
> From past experience I know that every single graphical
element must be
> converted to CMYK otherwise it will not show up on the
plate. (I need to be
> really cautious with this particular job)
r_tist,
I'm very sorry, my advice to create a composite CMYK PDF via
the print
dialog does not work. I should have checked before I wrote
that. You are
correct. The Pantone spot colors will be preserved in the
PDF.
I'm fairly confident the PDF would print fine, as long as the
printer
selected 'separations' and 'convert all spots to process' in
the Acrobat
Advanced Print Setup. However, you'd be relying on someone
else to make sure
that happened.
I do know that Pantone solid colors will correctly output to
process
separations when 'print spot colors as process' is checked in
the FH print
dialog.
You may want talk to your print shop and see what kind of
file they would
prefer. Because they would know the characteristics of their
own press and
paper, they may want to do their own adjustments to convert
Pantone solid
colors to CMYK.
Judy Arndt

SPOT to PROCESS: CS3-JS

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