Assigning Spot Colours In Indesign CS

[nellabusta]

Adobe Indesign CS
Windows XP Professional [No SP]


I have a question regarding assigning a spot colour to the contents of a layer in Indesign CS.

I recently created a CMYK document with a spot colour layer comprised of different element types: Text [created in Indesign], placed vector graphics [created in Illustrator CS] and greyscale TIFFs using alpha channels [created in Photoshop CS] to define transparency. I created all of these elements in greyscale. The elements created in Indesign [the text, converted to outlines, assigned Pantone spot colour] appeared the correct colour in the programme once the spot swatch was assigned. I could only apply the spot colour to the box containing the .ai elements, not the elements themselves - if I used the content selection tool, the swatch palette greyed-out and became inaccessible. Identical situation with the TIFFs. I would have thought that perhaps it is not possible - I can find nothing directly relating to this issue in either the on-line help OR in the Indesign manual [have I missed something?] - yet today I received a PDF for approval from a press bureau with this layer reproduced entirely in the correct pantone composited with the CMYK content. It is politically unadvisable for me to ask THEM how they did this [don't ask why - nothing to do with personal pride, just company politics!] so I was hoping someone here could perhaps shed some light on the matter for me.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

 

[jmgalvin]

You could try embedding the image and see if things work then. Don't know it that will work or not.

Ordinarily ID, like quark, only links to an outside image, leaving all editing of the image to the original creator.

 

[nellabusta]

Have solved the problem now - thanks for your thoughts on this jmgalvin - didn't work, unfortunately, but you were right about the source of the issue lying outside of Indesign. Found the solution by reading answers to similar posts - maybe I should have done that first!
Saving PSDs from Photoshop using the correct 'Spot Colour Channel' procedure did it for the bitmaps, and saving out the Illustrator files with the correct Pantone reference did it for the vector files.

Thanks again.

 

[jimoblak]

The filetypes that you import determine if you can apply spot colors. A flattened grayscale TIFF with a clipping path can be colored in InDesign.

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[nellabusta]

The bitmap I wanted to use in this instance has 'soft' edges - a clipping path would only give me an 'on/off' vector edge [I think?], not the soft gradation I was looking for . . .

 

[jimoblak]

Yes, then you are limited to coloring in Photoshop. I was only mentioning the particular times when you might color in InDesign.

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[nellabusta]

Yes, thanks - that's a very useful technique and I'll bear it in mind in the future. Thanks for your trouble on this - I've learnt a lot!