Adobe CMYK Separation Issue

[Sylverwing]

I work in a newspaper where a lot of ads come through. We all know of simple little fixes for what I am about to ask, but these "tricks" do not always work.

When we place certain ads into Photoshop to "repair" them, the channels for Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta all contain text that is only supposed to be in the Black channel. Does anyone seriously know of an easier way of improving the quality or fixing the problem without a bunch of hassle? We know how to delete it from each facet and darken it only on black, but even then, sometimes the black is too light/unreadable, when this is done.

I will be entirely grateful for anyone's help!!!!!

 

[apepp]

...largely depends on the original format supplied, if you are converting rgb black text pdf to photoshop then you are better off fixing the pdf than opening in photoshop, same for cmyk text elements...

...to fix pdf's you really need pitstop pro or acrobat pro's preflight feature...

...another scenario the artwork is already a raster file, in which case photoshop is probably the only tool you could use. I imagine this is where your question is really aimed at...

...or perhaps the raster data is part of a pdf, in which case, sometimes you can 'edit image' using the acrobat touch up object tool to open it in photoshop, make change, and save directly back to the pdf it came from. However this doesn't always work with all pdf files, largely depending on what applications these pdf's came from, and whether transparency is involved...

...in photoshop, trying to fix cmyk black text/lines can be troublesome...

...and if it is coming from a text based pdf then as far as quality goes, raster the pdf to 600dpi - 1200dpi can yield sharper on output, as opposed to 300dpi...

...or best leave it as pdf and fix in acrobat, then text doesn't become raster...

...the method i use for a raster fix is the channel mixer adjustment layer...

...that way it allows you to force all colors to the black channel, and the option to mask unwanted areas...

Andrew

 

[dmacster]

Andrew raises good points. If possible, fix the pdf. If not we at my newspaper open the pdf as RGB in Photoshop, and convert to our CMYK Profile for fixing changes with the Black Generation to maximum with 100 and 300 total on ink.

Works about 99.9 percent of the time without having to do any adjustments in the channels for the black. You will probably need to play with other color in the file.

Hope that makes sense.

Donna