SWOP to GRACoL Conversion

[Potonka]

So, we print using GRACoL, we have one of our main customers that use SWOP. We have been "converting" to GRACoL, against my better judgement, because the prepress manager and I are concerned some people will forget to "assign" the correct profile, thus creating more problems, because the conversion on press creates even more issues.

Question is, does anybody know a way to ASSIGN profile automatically in Illustrator? We have an action set up and we are running it as a script when files are opened in Photoshop, but have had no luck recording an action in Illustrator, because Illustrator is stupid when it comes to recording actions.

We're using CS5 and CS6.

Thanks

 

[DCurry]

Assuming all the graphics are linked in an InDesign layout, why not just convert upon exporting to PDF using the proper settings under the Output tab?

 

[Potonka]

Assuming all the graphics are linked in an InDesign layout, why not just convert upon exporting to PDF using the proper settings under the Output tab?

Hey Dan,
We are not creating files, and we want to stay sway from converting, we need to assign. There is a big difference of how it changes color. I think we may have a work around. I have tested a few files this morning, by copy/pasting artwork into a new file(document), it seems to assign and not convert. We figure that is easier for everyone in prepress to remember.
This shouldn't be an issue, if we could trust everyone to open file, preserving profiles, then assign GRACoL, but we have a few people who are not as, shall I say, proficient at doing their job.

Thanks for your reply

 

[DCurry]

I misunderstood, mainly because your original post said you were converting to GRACoL.

 

[Potonka]

I misunderstood, mainly because your original post said you were converting to GRACoL.

Sorry, I guess I needed to be more specific than quotes around Convert and assign, and maybe put "Convert vs Assign" or something in the thread name. My bad.

 

[Potonka]

to be more specific...
We handled files this way..
File comes in, we preflight by getting it to a pdf, out of whatever file. The settings in Adobe were to Convert to GRACoL automatically, so no matter what profile it would convert colors. Sometimes with transparencies and spot colors, and other anomalies, it would change colors drastically, however, we would not know this, since we hardly get proofs to compare. :-\ (We are large format digital and mostly print psv, banners, billboards, backlits).
The hope was to find a way to either script, run an action, or somehow be able to automatically "Assign Profile", without having to add another SOP to prepress. Unfortunately, Adobe doesn't give you the option in Illustrator to "Assign" when opening, only "Convert".

Hopefully I haven't confused the whole thing more.

I guess, in the end, we have added a new Standard Operating Procedure by having everyone copy/paste into a new document in Illustrator, but they were really supposed to be doing it all along, as it strips the art of any "weirdness" and we have set custom color swatches that load when creating a new doc in AI. We are just going to enforce it now.

Hey thanks again for replying, sorry for the confusion.

 

[DCurry]

No apologies necessary!

So, if I'm understanding correctly, you really just want to pass the CMYK numbers straight through? If so, I would either

(a) turn off color management altogether (or as much as possible)

or

(b) leave it on, but when making your PDFs choose "Convert to Destination (preserve numbers)". This will only convert images that have non-Gracol profiles or are RGB, and anything that has no profile will be considered to have Gracol "assigned."

Perhaps someone else with a more thorough understanding can chime in to correct me (or agree with me, whichever the case may be), but I don't think you need to be doing what you're doing to achieve the result you're after.

When you "assign" a profile, you're not really changing any of the numbers in the file. What you are doing is changing how it appears onscreen, and changing how it will convert if and when a later conversion occurs. When you "convert," you are changing the numbers but retaining the appearance.

 

[Potonka]

When you "convert," you are changing the numbers but retaining the appearance.

That is the way we were set up for a year, but when there are spot colors and transparencies, appearance differs a bunch. Yeah, we send files to press without GRACoL, because I have profiled everything to work in the GRACoL color space and have our workflow set up to control that, the problem we are having is when we are sent SWOP files and converted(not assigned) to GRACoL, the appearance is affected. I tested just sending their file straight to print and I ended up with more issues there. I am just trying to get it in GRACoL color space, so the RIP doesn't convert it or Illustrator doesn't convert, . We just want to control the color space, and keep the look that the customer wants with them using SWOP. I have asked if they could just send it to us as GRACoL, but that was last week and they do a lot of offset, so I don't think they will change their workflow.

Yes, if there is a better way, I am all ears. I have tried countless variations. The best that works overall is workflow set to GRACoL, with files properly preflighted that have been assigned the GRACoL print matching their proof. This particular company just started sending us proofs to match. This is how we found out about this problem. We were reprinting jobs because they were saying it wasn't matching what they wanted, so we set up a proofer for them at their site. Now they print out on a proofer I profiled. They are sending those SWOP files to that printer(with efi Fiery), but we have 2 different RIPs(Onyx and efi Fiery FX). Onyx is the feisty one. Anything we print using SWOP or GRACoL in efi matches almost perfectly. But Onyx, it's not even close, until I assign GRACoL. whew

It may be something in Onyx I can change, but for now, the copy/paste works.

 

[Visualaid]

So, we print using GRACoL, we have one of our main customers that use SWOP. We have been "converting" to GRACoL, against my better judgement, because the prepress manager and I are concerned some people will forget to "assign" the correct profile, thus creating more problems, because the conversion on press creates even more issues.

Question is, does anybody know a way to ASSIGN profile automatically in Illustrator? We have an action set up and we are running it as a script when files are opened in Photoshop, but have had no luck recording an action in Illustrator, because Illustrator is stupid when it comes to recording actions.

We're using CS5 and CS6.

Thanks

Open Bridge, go to Color Settings and choose the GRACol profile. This makes all of your creative suite use GRACol.

 

[DCurry]

That makes my head hurt.

 

[Potonka]

Visualaid,
Thanks for the reply, but I think you may be replying without reading the whole thread, which is cool. It's long winded.

You don't have to reread it, I got a work around.

 

[Potonka]

That makes my head hurt.

Yeah, I know, mine too.

 

[rich apollo]

Potonka, you're running some kind of RIPs in front of your output devices, right? Have you tried setting those up to ignore any ICC profiles attached to the files and just to assume the GRACoL color space? That accomplishes what you're wanting without any user intervention.

 

[Potonka]

Potonka, you're running some kind of RIPs in front of your output devices, right? Have you tried setting those up to ignore any ICC profiles attached to the files and just to assume the GRACoL color space? That accomplishes what you're wanting without any user intervention.

Hi Rich, thanks for the reply!
Yeah, that is the way I have it set up, but Onyx is still doing some weirdness when there is a transparency, but if I ASSIGN GRACoL to the file it is fine. I HAD Adobe set up to "Convert to Profile"(GRACoL) no matter what the embedded profile was from customer, as I said before, it was changing the appearance of the file without us knowing.

File has Spot Colors also. We send files to RIP without GRACoL embedded, it just seems if we don't do the conversion beforehand, it changes the transparency color a faded look. It may be the way the customer saves the pdf and just saving it with our preset "fixes" it.

Prepress manager and I have decided to put in a SOP in preflight of files. Teach everyone how to Assign GRACoL, I mean, it really is simple to do, and the answer to our issue. We were just looking for a way to do this automatically, under the hood, so to speak, like we were doing with Convert to Profile.

 

[kennycu]

Seems your issue is with spot colors? Do you have Onyx using it's color tables instead of color management?

Another solution, since this is large format printing, is to convert spot colors to CMYK in the "ink management" option in the output tab of PDF dialog box.

"Converting" to your Onyx input colorspace(Gracol?) is the right solution for Onyx and PDFs.

Assigning, at any time, will change the look you had in SWOP. But not as much as you seem to be seeing.

Hope this helps.

 

[Greg_Firestone]

The thought of copy and pasting random PDFs in Illustrator is quite scary to me. More opportunities for problems. Have you looked into Device Link Profiles conversions at all? You can have a specific one which maps SWOP to GraCol. It's different than traditional ICC color management which would go from SWOP => PCS (L*a*b*) => GraCol.

Greg

 

[Potonka]

Potonka, you're running some kind of RIPs in front of your output devices, right? Have you tried setting those up to ignore any ICC profiles attached to the files and just to assume the GRACoL color space? That accomplishes what you're wanting without any user intervention.

Okay, crap, DCurry and Rich both had it right. For some reason, I didn't "get" the turn off color management in Adobe. By just setting the selection to "off" in the color management policies would do what I needed. Thanks guys, and sorry for not realizing it from the beginning. I was over-thinking. :-\