Acrobat X Output Preview not accurate

[Colorblind]

Acrobat X Pro previews separations properly here, your black text and your black frame showing as 100K only.

[capitalcolour]

Acrobat X Pro previews separations properly here, your black text and your black frame showing as 100K only.

Great! Now why the difference on our machines? There must be a setting somewhere affecting the reading?

[Greg_Firestone]

Have you tried trashing your acrobat preferences to see if that makes a difference?

~/Library/Preferences/

Greg

[Stephen Marsh]

capitalcolour, are you changing the "simulation profile" drop down menu at the head of the output preview window? If this is left at the original value (as setup in your colour settings, as this PDF has no output intent profile as found in a PDF/X file) - then the separation is indicated as black only. If you change the simulation profile, then one will see a rich black (as would happen in an "unconstrained" CMYK to CMYK profile conversion through an ICC PCS).

As I mentioned in my original post, separation preview can cause confusion in some cases as it can be showing the expected results of a future conversion and not the current object properties as found with object inspector.

Object Inspector reports the black frame image as "DeviceN, Black". Separations preview indicates that the black frame image is DeviceCMYK.


Stephen Marsh

[capitalcolour]

Thanks Stephen, Let me look into this as trashing preferences didn't help.

[capitalcolour]

capitalcolour, are you changing the "simulation profile" drop down menu at the head of the output preview window? If this is left at the original value (as setup in your colour settings, as this PDF has no output intent profile as found in a PDF/X file) - then the separation is indicated as black only. If you change the simulation profile, then one will see a rich black (as would happen in an "unconstrained" CMYK to CMYK profile conversion through an ICC PCS).

As I mentioned in my original post, separation preview can cause confusion in some cases as it can be showing the expected results of a future conversion and not the current object properties as found with object inspector.

Object Inspector reports the black frame image as "DeviceN, Black". Separations preview indicates that the black frame image is DeviceCMYK.


Stephen Marsh

Stephen,

Why when I open the file is Acrobat 8 does the simulation profile default to Gracol which we want but in X it is Adobe RGB which doesn't help me turn off a black separation to view possible issues? Is it the checkbox in 8 that isn't present in X about output intent overriding working space?

[Colorblind]

capitalcolour, there doesn't seem to be an output intent tagged in your PDF, so Acrobat is using your color settings preference to choose what simulation profile to use in Separation Preview. My default CMYK working space here is SWOP2006_Coated3v2.icc, so that's the simulation profile being used in Separation Preview. I manually changed that Separation Preview simulation profile to "US web coated" and, sure enough, your black only areas are now displayed as rich 4 col black. So if color settings are set exactly the same on all workstations, Separation Preview should use the very same CMYK simulation profile by default thus producing the same separation results.

[Stephen Marsh]

Not sure about X (Adobe don't offer a Mac demo!) - however I can't make the v9 output preview default to an RGB space, it always defaults to my colour settings CMYK space. I can manually change the simulation profile to an RGB space, however when I close down the file and re-open it, it defaults back to my colour settings CMYK space. Perhaps Adobe has made this a "sticky" setting in X?

As Colorblind mentioned, it is probably a good idea to sync the colour settings on all computers in production.


Stephen Marsh

[leonardr]

Looks like the problem was identified (incorrect user settings), but I'll add a few bits.

1 - Acrobat 8 is no longer supported and has a number of issues we've addressed over the 5+ years! Stop using it .

2 - PLEASE use PDF/X files if you are working in the print industry. Anything else is unreliable (as you are seeing here first hand)!!!

3 - Yes, in Acrobat X we made the profile 'sticky' based on user request.

[Stephen Marsh]

Looks like the problem was identified (incorrect user settings), but I'll add a few bits.

1 - Acrobat 8 is no longer supported and has a number of issues we've addressed over the 5+ years! Stop using it .

2 - PLEASE use PDF/X files if you are working in the print industry. Anything else is unreliable (as you are seeing here first hand)!!!

3 - Yes, in Acrobat X we made the profile 'sticky' based on user request.

Thanks Leonard - and Adobe will provide a Mac demo of Acrobat X or later, when?


Stephen Marsh