Why are my gradients out of Illustrator coming out as NChannel?

Question

I'm running into an issue with printing gradients. I build the file in Adobe Illustrator CC, in CMYK. I build a gradient of 100% Cyan to 1% Cyan. Save as a PDF 1.5, 1.6 or 1.7. When I look at the PDF with Acrobat it says the gradients are NChannel color space. To get them to work correctly I have to convert them to CMYK. Is there a reason why Illustrator changes the gradients to NChannel and not the image's color space?

Answer 1

Exactly where and when are you getting this message, please post a screenshot. Who is you rcolro specified in the swatches palette. They should be CMYK process and not spot if CMYK is what you are looking for.
NCHannel used for defining spot colors. DeviceN was added to PDF in the PDF 1.4 specifications. It enables more accurate handling of color blending by including additional dot gain and color mixing information.
Check out the print guide
http://partners.adobe.com/public/asn/en/print_resource_center/AC7_PrintingGuide.pdf
To convert a document’s colors to a different color space:
In the Convert Colors dialog box, select an option from the list of color spaces and colorants used in the document. You can specify different conversion options for different color spaces and colorants. For example, you could embed separate color profiles to calibrate color for gray- scale, RGB, and CMYK objects. This strategy could be useful if your RIP color-manages PDF files or if you are sharing PDF files with others.
Select an option from the Action menu:
• Preserve keeps objects in the selected color space when you output the document.
• Convert uses the destination space profile to convert color objects to a common ICC profile for an output device.
• Decalibrate removes embedded profiles from the color objects in that color space.
Choose a destination profile, which should accurately define the target output device.
Specify which pages to convert.
Specify whether to embed the profile. If you embed the profile as a source color space, Acrobat tags all images with the destination profile. If you embed it as an output intent, Acrobat uses the destination profile as the output intent, replacing any existing output intent.
Select Preserve Black Objects to prevent text in RGB black, or other black objects, from being converted to rich black when converted to CMYK.
Depending on the color spaces you select, the Convert Colors command will preserve, convert, or map color values from the source color space to the specified destination space as follows:
Objects with untagged RGB data (DeviceRGB) convert from the working space RGB profile to the CMYK gamut of the destination space. Untagged CMYK (DeviceCMYK) and grayscale (DeviceGray) values are converted in the same way.
Objects in device-independent color spaces (CalGray, CalRGB, or CIE L*a*b) can be preserved or converted. If they are converted, Acrobat uses the device-independent object’s embedded profile information.
Objects set in spot colors (including Separation, DeviceN, and NChannel color spaces) can
be preserved, converted, or mapped (aliased) to any other ink present in the document. Spot colors can also be mapped to a CMYK process color, if the process color model of the destina- tion space is CMYK. Spot colors mapped to other inks can be previewed in the Output Preview dialog box.