Spot color conversion Indesign vs Acrobat Pro

[kseldridge1]

Yes, I understand the LAB and spot colors thing. I personally think that all is categorized as 'color management 101' Its just that I looking for an answer to the original question. The workflow was simply to explain what and why Im doing it. Please forget the RIP software and focus on Acrobat and Indesign and color conversion differences between the two.

 

[leonardr]

The original question is, why can I not recreate, in Acrobat preflight fixups for color conversion, the same result that I get in Indesign pdf export, color settings 'Convert to destination', do not include profiles. Indesign converts and holds the spot but Acrobat will not.

I just went into Acrobat X Preflight, chose to create a new Fixup. Selected the first fixup item - Convert Colors. It's defaults seem to be exactly what you want...Convert all object (except spots) to the specified destination profile.

What am I missing???!

I simply wanted to create a automator hotfolder workflow that would launch a preflight droplet and convert files to different printers. There seems to be a disconnect. If someone could achieve this, that would be great.

Just a reminder that such a workflow could NOT be used by multiple individuals (unless EACH ONE OF THEM had their own license for Acrobat).

 

[kseldridge1]

OK, well notice that the appearance of the spot is the same as before the conversion, of coarse, (except spot) option. The same color numbers.

What I want is to keep the spot colors but 'convert to destination', change the appearance.

This is what happens in Indesign if you 'convert to destination' you get the same result but the spot colors are converted, different color numbers.

If you add a preflight fixup to convert spots also, you will get cmyk values and lose your spots.

It looks as though I can not create the same conversion scenario between Acrobat and Indesign. I am looking for what I am missing... or someone to agree with me.

 

[leonardr]

OK, well notice that the appearance of the spot is the same as before the conversion, of coarse, (except spot) option. The same color numbers.

What I want is to keep the spot colors but 'convert to destination', change the appearance.

That doesn't make any sense to me. HOW could you keep the spots AND change the appearance??!

Either you are keeping teh colors as defined _OR_ you are changing them to the destination? There is a third option, that is supported by the Acrobat/InDesign InkManager where you can ALIAS spots. Is that what you are doing?!?

 

[kseldridge1]

No I am not aliasing in ink manager. Indesign can export to pdf, 'convert to destination' and change appearance of spot colors treating them like process but retain the spot channel in resulting pdf. Acrobat through preflight fixups, can not recreate this behavior. Why?

 

[leonardr]

No I am not aliasing in ink manager. Indesign can export to pdf, 'convert to destination' and change appearance of spot colors treating them like process but retain the spot channel in resulting pdf. Acrobat through preflight fixups, can not recreate this behavior. Why?

What option(s) are you using in the InDesign export dialog that you think does this?? I can not find any such control NOR do I believe that INDD has such an option.

Can you please tell us EXACTLY what steps you take to achieve this? Also, please post the INDD and PDF files that demonstrate it.

Thanks!

 

[kseldridge1]

Here is a zip file with an Indesign with output screen shotsand two output pdfs.

Notice Press Quality pdf, if you use the output preview in Acrobat you will see the spot colors listed in the pdf.

Notice the A1sbs pdf also list its spot colors.

The two files do not match in appearance.

The A1sbs has been 'converted to destination' while the

Press Quality has been convert to destination(preserve numbers).

This is all great but when I try to recreate in Acrobat preflight fixup, I can NOT convert spots and retain them in pdf. You can see in screen shots how i output. A1_SBS_Quality is a device profile.

 

[Correct Color]

Well, what's going on is that you haven't actually "converted" the spots in Indesign.

They're still spots. If you were using the spot color library in Onyx correctly and you sent it both of these files, they'd print exactly the same, beacuse it would see these areas as spot colors in its spot color library and pay no attention to the "alternate" CMYK data.

If you drill all the way down on one of your spot colors individually in Acrobat, what you'll see is that each of the spot colors has an alternate color space, which is the device CMYK space; but again, they have not been converted into that space. Since these files are in two different CMYK spaces, that's why you get different CMYK values.

Once you actually convert them in Acrobat, however, they become CMYK and the spot channels are gone.


Mike Adams
Correct Color

 

[kseldridge1]

OK. If I choose not to use spot library in Onyx or any other RIP I will get the cmyk value specified in the color space. The piece will look like what is on screen (in a perfect world). That is our workflow. So i want Onyx to be able to see a White spot channel for our Acuity and deal with it accordingly but not use spot color lookup table on other spot channels. If a designer uses spots for choosing 'pleasing' colors but does not intend for them to print as spots I want to give them what they see on screen. Then I do not have to choose each spot and change to process. What if I miss one?

So as complicated as the subject is, is there a way to mimic this behavior in Acrobat preflight fixup conversion? If no, Why not?

 

[Correct Color]

OK. If I choose not to use spot library in Onyx or any other RIP I will get the cmyk value specified in the color space. The piece will look like what is on screen (in a perfect world).

Actually...Not really. See, when you call for a PMS color, both Indesign and Illustrator send to the screen a representative CMYK value from a color space that seems to be known only to themselves. And they use the same CMYK values regardless of what working CMYK space you happen to be in, or even if you're working in RGB. So attempting to screen match a PMS in either Illustrator or Indesign is a complete exercise in futility.

That's what PMS books are for, and in particular in digital printing, that what bridge books are for.

So as complicated as the subject is, is there a way to mimic this behavior in Acrobat preflight fixup conversion?

Offhand, I'd say no.

If no, Why not?

Probably because to Adobe, convert means convert. There's no real reason to do what you're asking to be done.


Mike Adams
Correct Color

 

[kseldridge1]

Well its not until this White device was introduced that I really needed it. Im sorry if you do not agree with my methods. To me it seems very simple and straight forward. I convert what I see on screen to print on device I want. If I am pleased by a pms288c under SWOP on screen I do not want pms288c from the book. So why would I default to a pms book when it does not represent what is viewed on screen. Certainly you can understand designers aren't always up to speed when it comes to print production. Some do not understand Spots and the implications. They just grab pretty colors from a digital pallet. The big problem here is Adobe using LAB in photoshop and sticking with legacy rgb lookup for Illy and default in Indesign. They should all reference LAB values for spots. Then we could reliably use a spot table in ONYX.

Anyway, we have exhausted the subject. There is no way to create the same 'color converted' PDF from Indesign and Acrobat. I believe it is a flaw.

 

[Correct Color]

If I am pleased by a pms288c under SWOP on screen I do not want pms288c from the book. So why would I default to a pms book when it does not represent what is viewed on screen.

Because if you want PMS 288C, and your screen doesn't match the book, your screen is wrong.

Certainly you can understand designers aren't always up to speed when it comes to print production. Some do not understand Spots and the implications. They just grab pretty colors from a digital pallet.

Well, my experience is that a printer who truly understands processes and can explain them to clients is a printer clients will stick with over the long haul. Any "designer" who is just picking color from a digital pallet and expecting a screen match, is first off certainly not very well educated in their craft, and second off bound to have no end of frustrations in getting their work produced until they learn how to effectively manage getting their work produced.

In digital printing, that means a particular process in handling how to deal with PMS colors. As I said initially, I've set that very process up at hundreds of large and grand format shops, all of them with a money back guarantee, all of them use it effectively, and many of them use the exact same machines you're using.

I'd suggest that sometimes it is time to change. Rather than blaming Adobe, it is just possible that for you, this might just be one of those times.


Mike Adams
Correct Color

 

[kseldridge1]

Then why would you need 'Use LAB values for spot in Indesign'. Please pull pms288c swatch into indesign. Then go to ink manager and set LAB values for spots. You will see the color change drastically. 288 in book is much darker than screen representation. I do have a calibrated monitor using Color Eyes Display. I have a very low DeltaE. (cant remember number) My ducks are lined up. I feel you have lost sight of the question and dislike me for my methods. I have not said anything that is untrue. Your comment about 288 makes that clear.

Those who can not think outside of the box are destined to fail.

 

[Correct Color]

You may have a calibrated monitor, but that's not the point.

The point is that when you create a PMS color in Indesign, what you get is a CMYK value.

For PMS 288C, that value happens to be: 100; 67; 0; 23.

And the problem is: It makes no difference what color space you're working in, that's the CMYK value you get. So if your CMYK working space is SWOP, you get 100, 67, 0, 23 in SWOP. If you're in the working space of your Fuji, for instance, then you get 100, 67, 0, 23 in that color space. Then if you try and convert that color to Lab, you get the Lab value of that CMYK value in that color space.

In SWOP, that winds up being 30; -2; -45.

In an Acuity profile I made recently printing on Sintra in Quality mode, it comes out: 24; 12; -59.

Note that there's only one PMS 288C. It cannot have two Lab values. And not only can it not have two Lab values, neither of those Lab values are PMS 288C.

Want proof?

Go to Photoshop and call up PMS288C. It's actual Lab value (non Plus version) according to Photoshop is 18; 8; -50.

Translate that to SWOP and you get 100; 86; 26; 20.

Translated to that same Acuity profile it's: 100; 72; 26; 35.

None of which of course are particularly close to the 100; 67; 0; 23 you get out of Indesign or Illustrator.

Now, what PMS 288C actually is is an ink formula: Twelve parts Reflex Blue; 4 parts Process Blue; .5 parts Black. Mix those inks together, print them on coated stock, and you have PMS 288C.

And the goal in printing PMS colors digitally is always to get as close to that solid printed ideal as possible.

As I said before, because of the way Illustrator and Indesign handle PMS colors, they're absolutely useless for determining any spot color settings.

The only good news about both of them is that if you create spot colors in them as spots and process them through a RIP with an included PMS library as spots, they won't mess them up.

If you want to think I don't like you, that's fine. But what I've told you is the way it is.

Your comment about 288 makes that clear.

My comment was that if your screen doesn't match the book, your screen is wrong.

That's simply a fact. The book is printed using the ink formula. You might as well be trying to match a red Ferrari, have the car sitting right there, and try to argue that your screen is the right color and the car is wrong.

The book is the only common reference point you have. If you want to "think outside the box" and invent new PMS colors each and every day, all I can say is...Have fun.

I'm done here.


Regards,
Mike Adams

 

[kseldridge1]

Explain that to a customer that just wants the color close to what they expect. They want what is on screen. A color table will not give you that necessarily.

 

[Correct Color]

Explain that to a customer that just wants the color close to what they expect. They want what is on screen. A color table will not give you that necessarily.

Well, I've been explaining color reproduction to discriminating clients since--I'll wager--before you were born. (I stand corrected if you were born before 1978.)

And frankly, if clients are serious about the business of color reproduction, they have to learn the fundamentals of color reproduction. And one of those first fundamentals is that they can't expect to match a spot color on an unprofiled screen. They have to invest in the tools of their trade, and one of the first tools they have to have is a set of PMS books.

If they're unwilling to understand that and to make that investment, then to me they are not professional designers, and they shouldn't expect professional results.

One thing though, I got to thinking and did go check out the Ink Manager in Indesign. I rarely use Indesign and frankly wasn't even aware it was there. And indeed, if you set it to spots as Lab, it gives you your spots as their true actual Lab values.

So two things: If you have that on, and you have a discrepancy with PMS book, it's not Adobe funkiness, it's your monitor profile. But also if you have that on you can pass your work through your early-binding workflow and it will print as well as your printer profiles allow.

However, that still doesn't solve your white issue.

Anyway, I am done arguing here. Best of luck.


Mike

 

[Stephen Marsh]

kseldridge1, on your InDesign vs. Acrobat colour conversion issues: As stated earlier in the thread, I have not been able to reproduce your results... So I will leave that to Leonardr, who works for Adobe.

As for your workflow issue, all I can do is show you how I would handle things using Kodak Proofing Software - perhaps this will give you an idea to look for a similar method in your RIP.

KPS spot colour options allow the RIP to look in a look up table first, if the colour is not specified correctly by name then the "alternate colour values" in the source file will be used instead.

The look up table would then only have white ink in it, so if the source file had another spot that was not the named white ink, the build in the file would then be used.

Two images attached.


All the best,

Stephen Marsh

 

[leonardr]

Actually...Not really. See, when you call for a PMS color, both Indesign and Illustrator send to the screen a representative CMYK value from a color space that seems to be known only to themselves.

And in some cases, we use a LAB alternate instead of a CMYK alternate. FWIW: These alternates come from the swatches themselves (eg. from the Pantone provided data set) - Adobe doesn't make them up.

Probably because to Adobe, convert means convert. There's no real reason to do what you're asking to be done.

Correct. Additionally, by the time Acrobat gets the PDF, there isn't anything for it to do since it doesn't have the original swatch to work from.

 

[rich apollo]

kseldridge1,
I think I found what you're looking for. InDesign is changing the alternate colors of the spots. You can do this in Acrobat in a Preflight.

Take a look at the attached screen grab.

 

[kseldridge1]

It works! Thank you for taking time to address this. Exactly what I am looking for. I was making the second fixup for spots to 'convert to destination'. I should have dug a little deeper. Adobe is golden, It was simply operator error.