RGB convertion to grayscale

[rande]

I'm curious what others are doing.
I normally open all RGBs in PS and convert; but I have a job with hundreds of photo.
I ran a test with RGB pict in Indd CS3 and the same pict converted in PS.
Made a PS file and Distilled it. In Acrobat 7 the RGB was converted automatically out of Indd
and looks better than the PS converted file.
CM in Indd is custom
RGB 1998
CMYK US web coated (swop) v2
RGB and CMYK : convert to working space
Is all this right and is that the right way of doing this?
thanks

 

[leonardr]

I ran a test with RGB pict in Indd CS3 and the same pict converted in PS.
Made a PS file and Distilled it. In Acrobat 7 the RGB was converted automatically out of Indd
and looks better than the PS converted file.

"Color" me confused...

You have InDesign CS3, but Acrobat 7? That's a strange combination...

You have InDesign CS3, but are still using producing your PDF document using Postscript and Distiller? That method is not recommended for producing the highest fidelity PDF documents.

 

[rande]

Really?
We had problems doing export PDFs out of Indd cs3; it would throw things off. Picture boxes that would line up normally, wouldn't after exporting, so we went to ps files and distiller and it worked fine.
We have Acrobat 7 with Pitstop. We have 8 but I don't use it; not familiar with editing w/o pitstop.

 

[Gerhard]

Hi,
I think you are little ojd fashion. We've worked like that 10 years ago. Have you ever heard about PDF-X? Converting RGB to PS using Distiller to create CMYK PDF files with Pitstop is a solution that might work but it definitely takes too much steps. No wonder that you are running out of time.
How are your files designed? It seems to me that you are still using Quark. Getting printable PDF CMYK flies you should change to InDesign. Even so the dinosaurs in your company do'nt like it but Quark, even so they try their very best, has still problems creating printable PDF files.
Regards,
Gerhard

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

If I was going to use distiller I would print the PS as a composite gray. In Acrobat 9 colour converion with the preflight action convert to gray is good, but I did have issues with earlier Acrobat and do understand your workflow (even Acrobat 7 so that you can keep using pluggins like enfocus, I use Acrobat 7 and 9 because of workflow issues)
Your difference in conversion could be a colour management issue. What is your grey profile? Make sure it is compatible with your dot gain.

 

[Tech]

What an odd workflow... correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Photoshop "should" converts hundred of images faster through batch/action than Indy > export PDF conversion.

Not sure what you mean by "looks better", if we are talking about subjective opinion then it's likely optical illusion like seeing better tonality or richer grays. I agree with Lukas's suggestion on checking your dot gain might be a good starting point.

 

[rande]

That why I've come here to figure out the right workflow start to finish.

PS batch is a good idea if I do have a lot but the question is do I open them all in Photo and convert from RGB or run them thru Indd with CM; swop "on".
"Looks better"? was coming from a test I made, same file one RGB_ one opened in PS and converted to CMYK.
Ran a proof and the CMYK was washed out. (Granted I'm not sure CM was on in PS, sense I started questioning this) but the RGB out of Indd was noticably richer in color so I thought I was good but some were dark.

I've done it the way people have said and a few things have plagued me.
1) exporting out of Indd. we had picture boxes that wouldn't line up; it made them offset.
Running it as PS then distiller worked fine.
2) Leaving RGB in Indd and running thru the CM (Adobe 1998 and Swop) some come out dark.
Now if they are dark is it better to adjust the RGB and run thru Indd CM or change each one in PS?

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

We run all our colour files as RGB and convert to cmyk in InD, but that would give us the freedom to repurpose jobs. To grey, well exporting will not let you do grey, and rendering intent will play in if some images are getting dark. Ideally you should have an ICC with SWOP-grey as out profile, though I don't know how to do that.
Last job I did I used the convert to grey fixup in Acrobat 9.