Converting an CMYK pdf to single spot pantone colour

[Baldbug]

How do I convert a cmyk pdf into a pantone single spot pdf

I have Acrobat Professional, and most Adobe CS5 apps.

[Stephen Marsh]

More info would be needed.

Is it only certain elements? If so, what elements? Text, fills, strokes, images, gradients etc?

Or is it the whole job into a single spot colour?

Do you have Acrobat Pro? Do you have Pitstop and or PDF Toolbox or similar?


Best,

Stephen Marsh

[Baldbug]

Hi Stephen,

Mainly text and line work. A couple of logos. We only have Acrobat Pro 9 on Macs and Adobe CS5

[Lukas Engqvist]

How big is the job? Adobe colour converter is one way to go. A pitstop action is also a great way to go. Some times it is easier to separate into two process colours, e.g black + cyan and until plate and then just swap the cyan ink with your pantone. (if it is lotts skin tones and you will use orange/red pantone perhapps magenta + black will be more comfortable.

You can map the cyan or magenta to any pantone in Apogee workflow (even if there is transparency).

[Stephen Marsh]

Hi Stephen,

Mainly text and line work. A couple of logos. We only have Acrobat Pro 9 on Macs and Adobe CS5

I have not done this for a while and I may be a little off in my recollection. If you only have Adobe apps, then I have a hack for you. Depending on content, this may or may not work.

Convert a copy of the PDF to grayscale mode. This would be printed in the required spot. You could also darken blend in colour channels as suggested below into the grayscale conversion, in order to "beef it up".

or

Create CMYK .ps seps from the 4C PDF.
Turn the seps into PDF files.
Place the 4 seps into an InDesign document.
Black first. Then layer the CMY over the top of the K.
The blending mode of the CMY should be set to darken.
You may need to adjust opacity of the layers.
You may also need to swap around channels as the base and darker blend.
The final result is black only, single separation, which would be printed in the required spot colour.

Another way I would tackle this with only Adobe software is to load in the fonts used in the job or outline the fonts in a copy of the PDF. Then I would open it up in Illustrator and Photoshop as needed to change the colour, ensuring that nothing goes wacky in the conversion (yes, I know that this method is against best practice suggestions).


Best,

Stephen Marsh

[mattbeals]

There's a lot that can be done with PitStop Pro or pdfToolbox. The jist of it is that you can convert to grayscale and then map the grayscale to a spot color. Depending on which tool you use there are a few different steps. But going back to PostScript then back to PDF (while do-able) isn't necessary.

[rich apollo]

Just convert to grayscale. You can put whatever ink you want in the fountain.

[mattbeals]

Rich, that's too simple to work...

[Baldbug]

I have an existing indesign file of 50 pages + in a single pantone colour and I have a pdf file that is 20 pages + which is in cmyk. I need to convert the cmyk pdf to spot colour pdf to import into the indd file??

[prepression]

I would try to go back to the original program to do the conversion if that is possible. Converting the pDf to grayscale is an option, but risky if the printer puts the wrong ink in the press.

Prepression
http://exploringdigitalprepress.blogspot.com