Adobe Indesign Converting CMYK to RGB

[WWMMD]

I have had a couple jobs that had CMYK tiffs placed in indesign CS2 or CS3 on a mac. When i go to PDF or EPS the CMYK tiff files are now LOW RES and RGBs. My color settings for indesign are to emulate cs2 CMS off. The problem only happens with tiffs not eps or jpegs. Anyone else ever experience this or have any ideas.
thanks

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Assuming that you are exporting EPS or PDF (as opposed to creating same via a PostScript route), InDesign never downsamples or converts colors unless you have set options to do so. And InDesign treats TIFF no differently than JPEG or EPS. I would also open those TIFF files in Photoshop and ascertain that they really are CMYK and at the resolution you think they are as well as making sure that you have placed the images you think you are placing as opposed to low resolution FPO images. (We all tend to make that type of mistake once in a while).

BTW, it really is not possible to turn off color management in Adobe's Creative Suite applications. There are always some instances in which it is used implicitly. Rather than fighting the concept of CM (color management), learn to use it to your advantage.

- Dov

 

[WharfRat]

Since the photo may have been scaled in InDy ...
it is also a good idea to find the placed resolution in the info pallet.
As suggested - you are no doubt exporting PDF to "Smallest File Size" or some RGB product.

MSD

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Is transparency happening? (use the transparency preview window).
Is your transparency blend space set to RGB?

 

[kjacobson]

I have seen this with BW Tiffs

I have seen this with BW Tiffs

Open the file in Photoshop and re-save the file as a tiff but uncheck the "Embed Color Profile". This should let you print the file in the original color space.

 

[rich apollo]

OH, DEAR GOD, NO!!!!

If you strip the ICC profile you are left with a file of Mystery Meat. There is something else going on, like a bad OPI swap. There is something in the output settings causing this to happen; it's just a matter of tracking it down.

 

[Soilworker]

I've seen this more times that I choose to remember. I'm getting chills just thinking about it. It happens relatively often and I'm really tired of it.

The first question is whether or not you're using an asset management system such as B.media etc or maybe placing the files from a server? Alternatively, were these files perhaps converted from Quark using Q2ID? These are situations in which I've seen this happen most commonly.

Either scenario (or perhaps others) could easily result in the problem your having. Bungled links. Even if the links palette says everything is all nicey nice it can lie. I don't know if this is a fault with Indy or a bad interaction with a server/asset management system. If these files were converted from Quark using Q2ID it's a known issue.

The low res RGB images you are seeing are the on-screen proxy images that Indy uses to display an image . When the link goes bad and Indy doesn't catch it (for whatever reason) then it gives you what it can which is the low-res RGB on-screen proxy.

The best way to fix it is to re-place the images on the page in Indy, image box and all. You can try relinking to the existing image box but that may or may not work depending on whether or not the image box is actually the problem. I've seen it go both ways. If you try to relink to the existing image boxes and magically the image name appears twice in the links palette it's a sure sign that the image and box needs to be replaced.

I hope this helps.

~Soilworker