Acrobat not converting crop marks to black?

[wonderings]

I have an imposed business card pdf, 2 side on a 12x18 sheet. The front is colour, the back is black. It was imposed manually in Indesign CC 2014. Now because crop marks were made in indesign they are 100% CMYK. I thought if I converted this pdf with Acrobat that I would be fine, but that is not the case. It converts everything to grayscale, but the crop marks remain 100% CMYK. How do I fix this? This is on a Mac running OS 10.10.1 using Acrobat 11.0.09.


Thanks

 

[oxburger]

Can't you just grab the marks in Indesign and convert them to black only before exporting?

 

[DYP]

I have an imposed business card pdf, 2 side on a 12x18 sheet. The front is colour, the back is black. It was imposed manually in Indesign CC 2014. Now because crop marks were made in indesign they are 100% CMYK. I thought if I converted this pdf with Acrobat that I would be fine, but that is not the case. It converts everything to grayscale, but the crop marks remain 100% CMYK. How do I fix this? This is on a Mac running OS 10.10.1 using Acrobat 11.0.09.


Thanks

You didn't give us a lot of information why you want crop marks to be black only.

If I am guessing you want a black click on the back side.

I am also guessing what RIP your using. You need to set under Gray & Black Processing CMYK: to at least Text/Graphics. You may also need to uncheck "Use embedded profile when processing" and set source profile to the same as the default CMYK profile in InDesign for that PDF.

 

[gig0]

I believe Adobe changed the way Convert Colors handles 'Registration All' colors when converting to grayscale somewhere around Acrobat 10. It doesn't convert anything with a registration spot color to grayscale anymore. I consider it a step backwards considering many digital production machines will register color clicks on B&W sides due to registration marks.

Get used to either a PitStop action or see if it can be resolved by your RIP by modifying some preferences.

 

[wonderings]

Sorry, this is for a digital job. The file was given to us imposed and ready to go so want to keep this as simple as possible because it is a cheap job.

When converted and printing on our Xerox J75, it prints as colour still because the crop marks are 100% CMYK. Because it is a 2 sided job, 1 side full colour, the other side black, I cannot convert just the back of it to greyscale on the J75, it is all or nothing.

Anyway I can edit the preflight greyscale options in Acrobat? I looked around the settings but could not find anything for this.

 

[pajdzn]

I've always assumed the reason that "Registration" doesn't change when ripping is because it is not a color but rather an instruction to be 100% of all colors. Then the only way to change it is to use PitStop to change all "Registration" to black Globally or do it manually one by one.

 

[DYP]

Sorry, this is for a digital job. The file was given to us imposed and ready to go so want to keep this as simple as possible because it is a cheap job.

When converted and printing on our Xerox J75, it prints as colour still because the crop marks are 100% CMYK. Because it is a 2 sided job, 1 side full colour, the other side black, I cannot convert just the back of it to greyscale on the J75, it is all or nothing.

Anyway I can edit the preflight greyscale options in Acrobat? I looked around the settings but could not find anything for this.

Under Gray & Black Processing CMYK: what is your setting?

Does your source profile on the RIP match the assigned profile of the job?

Is it possible that there was a conversion (CMYK) that happened. What colors do the crop marks read in Acrobat Output Preview under the assigned profile?

 

[Stephen Marsh]

I believe Adobe changed the way Convert Colors handles 'Registration All' colors when converting to grayscale somewhere around Acrobat 10. It doesn't convert anything with a registration spot color to grayscale anymore. I consider it a step backwards considering many digital production machines will register color clicks on B&W sides due to registration marks.

Get used to either a PitStop action or see if it can be resolved by your RIP by modifying some preferences.

I can confirm, I consider this a bug in Acrobat Pro X, I sure hope that it was fixed in XI…


Stephen Marsh

 

[leonardr]

I can confirm, I consider this a bug in Acrobat Pro X, I sure hope that it was fixed in XI…

ABSOLUTELY NOT a bug - it's is by design and is correct.

As another person wrote, Separation "All" (aka Registration) is _NOT_ a color. It is an instruction to the rendering device to show up in ALL (hence the name) colourants (or plates, in a classic plate-based printing environment). It's not convertable via ICC color management (which is what Convert Colors does) because it has no color to start with.

However, we do provide in Preflight the ability (just as with PitStop) to change this instruction to an actual color in the space and value of your choice.

 

[DYP]

I know for a fact the with the proper settings on a rendering device, in this case a Fiery EX RIP that I can print Registration Color as black only getting a black click for a page that has all other elements as grayscale. This a couple grayscale pages in a 16 page set with color page as well.

Arguing about what Acrobat or even PitStop can do is pointless when the OP stated he is using J75 which probably has a Fiery EX RIP. Like I said, proper settings with an EX RIP will render Registration Color as black only getting a black click.

But if the OP will not answers my questions then I guess you can all keep going around and around.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

ABSOLUTELY NOT a bug - it's is by design and is correct.

As another person wrote, Separation "All" (aka Registration) is _NOT_ a color. It is an instruction to the rendering device to show up in ALL (hence the name) colourants (or plates, in a classic plate-based printing environment). It's not convertable via ICC color management (which is what Convert Colors does) because it has no color to start with.

However, we do provide in Preflight the ability (just as with PitStop) to change this instruction to an actual color in the space and value of your choice.

Leonard, I should have been more clear, I am not talking about the “convert colours” command, I agree that registration/all does not appear there.

With Acrobat Pro 9 I can run the preflight single fixup “convert registration color to black” and the registration colour is converted to DeviceGray.

With Acrobat Pro X when I run the preflight single fixup “convert registration color to black”, the result is Registration (separation All), nothing has changed.

I have confirmed with both Object Inspector and PitStop’s Enfocus Inspector at the object level.

I have even tried to import the fixup that works from Acrobat 9 to X, same result - X does not convert while 9 does.

EDIT: The full preflight for “Digital Printing (B/W)” also leaves the rego marks in separation all, instead of converting to mono (this profile also uses the fixup command to convert all objects from registration to grayscale). Again, in Acrobat 9 this works, while it is broken in X.

P.S. Can anybody confirm/deny with version X or XI, I have tried removing third party plugs, but I still can’t get X to convert rego/all in a preflight the same as it does in version 9.


Stephen Marsh

 

[DYP]

Maybe I am not making myself clear enough here.

A simple fact that everyone needs to realize with the Fiery EX. You can convert every element on one side to grayscale but unless you set under Gray & Black Processing CMYK: to at least Text/Graphics you are going to get a color click.

 

[JoeatData]

If you have pitstop you can do a global change.
I sometimes have to convert the marks to black. I do this when we have a black only job on the digital copier.
When the marks are in register we are charged with four click counts. Once the registered marks are changed to black we are only charged with one click count instead of four.

 

[wonderings]

Under Gray & Black Processing CMYK: what is your setting?

Does your source profile on the RIP match the assigned profile of the job?

Is it possible that there was a conversion (CMYK) that happened. What colors do the crop marks read in Acrobat Output Preview under the assigned profile?

I am not sure what the profiles are, we generally go for pleasing colours. When I view separations in Acrobat I see that the crop marks are 100% CMYK. The file was made in Indesign.

If this was a one side job, this would be simple, as you mentioned the Fiery can convert to grayscale. The problem is this is a 2 side job 4/1. I see no way of converting only the back of this job to grayscale while keeping the front full colour. This is why I was hoping there was a fix or a solution to allow me to convert the crop marks that were made by indesign to 100% black.

 

[DYP]

I am not sure what the profiles are, we generally go for pleasing colours. When I view separations in Acrobat I see that the crop marks are 100% CMYK. The file was made in Indesign.

If this was a one side job, this would be simple, as you mentioned the Fiery can convert to grayscale. The problem is this is a 2 side job 4/1. I see no way of converting only the back of this job to grayscale while keeping the front full colour. This is why I was hoping there was a fix or a solution to allow me to convert the crop marks that were made by indesign to 100% black.

Do you have neutral grays (Text or Graphic) on the color side that some how get negatively affected by setting Gray & Black Processing CMYK: to Text/Graphic. Keep in mind that with this setting an image is not being converted, and also anything converting to use black only must be neutral, such 100, 50 etc. of CMY or CMYK. This setting is not for converting color to grayscale, only neutrals to use black only, thus your registration marks being 100% of CMYK get converted to black only. If everything else on the back side (black or grayscale side) is grayscale you should be able to get a black click on that side. If the job is grayscale and you don't set Gray & Black Processing CMYK: to Text/Graphic or Image if there is a grayscale bitmap you will get a color click.

As for assigned profiles not matching the source profile. If a assign profile (and yes you need any assigned profile in the PDF) is neutral for example 50% CMYK and the source profile is set for something different, the Fiery will not see this as neutral and will not use black only and will not give you a black click. To not be sure what the profiles are is a mistake just waiting to happen.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

I have uploaded a video screencast showing the correct results from Acrobat 9 and the incorrect results using the same fixup from Acrobat X:

acrobat-x-fixup-bug

I have made user errors in the past, however I am sure that is not the case here and if it is then it should be visible in the video!


Stephen Marsh

 

[Stephen Marsh]

BUMP - The silence is deafening!


Stephen Marsh

 

[DYP]

If you would have bothered to read and comprehend what the OP was trying to achieve and why, given the printer and RIP he is using then you would know why.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

If you would have bothered to read and comprehend what the OP was trying to achieve and why, given the printer and RIP he is using then you would know why.

DYP I don’t agree with your comment.

There are two separate discussions taking place.

One is to do with different results from Acrobat 10 than with earlier versions that use the same preflight fixup to convert registration to grey.

The second issue is RIP related and independent of the Acrobat preflight issue.

I am all for fixing this issue at the RIP with the right RIP settings and workflow - however that does not mean that one should ignore such an obvious problem with Acrobat X compared to earlier versions of Acrobat using the exact same preflight fixup!


Stephen Marsh

 

[DYP]

I agree Acrobat is a mess.

Adobe can't or doesn't care to fix the honoring a custom display profile problem either.

If it wasn't for plugins like PitStop, Acrobat would be about worthless.

But this doesn't really have anything to do with the OPs problem either, as he doesn't need to do anything in Acrobat to get a black click for the back side of a 4/1 print job.