Device N- Why???

[abc]

Hi Cindy what settings are you using in PitStop for the conversion?

 

[rich apollo]

Could you provide a snapshot of your PitStop color management preferences? Our preferences are set to the default color settings and I was curious as to what your settings are for a color managed shop - as yours seems to be.

My color management preferences may not be appropriate for your environment. The trick is to set PitStop up to use the same color management preferences and policies as Acrobat. PitStop, by default, uses some crazy FujiFilm profiles that I've never heard of before.

 

[Bashv]

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I have the same problem (or a very similar one) - unwanted conversion of transparent grayscale images to DeviceN, when exporting to PDF/X from Indesign. It can be PDF/X-3, 4, it doesn't seem to matter.

In my case, the problem affects only the transparent images, but also the the non-transparent images located on the same page with them. The rest of the content exports correctly.

The export settings are set to NO CONVERSION, but Indesign makes a conversion anyway. The transparency blend space in Indesign is set to CMYK.

The images are just grayscale, they use no other color except K. I've never assigned any other color to them, I never wanted duotone or something.

But Indesign is converting them to this DeviceN nonsense and they should be DeviceGray.

Acrobat's Object Inspector identifies this as: DeviceN, colorspace: Black, while Pitstop Inspector says: 1 spot color (monotone).

Basically, Indesign converts your hard work to something unwanted and you have no control over it. Some users might not even notice this, especially if you have lots of images.

Thanks

 

[Glenn McDowall]

IMHO PDFX compatibilty will give InDesign more freedom to change the colour space as it sees fit.
With all the "Device" color spaces, the goal is to put the dot percentages to the device, if you change the device you change the appearance.
You are talking about greyscale images; whether its DeviceN DeviceGrey or DeviceCMYK (with blank cmy channels) you get the same dots on the black plate.
I think you may be seeing things different in Acrobat because, output preview will use your color management preferences as a default starting point to convert to screen, if you then change the simulation profile Acrobat first tries to keep the appearance the same by changing the numbers and only then converting to screen.
Changing the Simulation Profile is not the same as changing the Device, instead it shows how it could look IF you Converted from the starting simulation profile to the newly selected simulation profile.