Placing a Duotone image in Illustrator

[kaff]

I found some information on this site, but none specific enough for what I need, so I'm hoping that someone out there can help me out!

I have created a duotone image in Photoshop. I need to place it in Illustrator. Every time I try to do this, it converts the image to CMYK, which is a problem, since this is only a two-color job, plus it is altering the look of the file.

I have saved the file as both a .psd and an .eps, with the same results. I found some info on this site saying to save the file as a .dcs, but I'm unfamiliar with this file format, plus Photoshop is only giving me three options for saving; .psd, .eps and .raw.

I understand that the Pantone color names must be identical between Photoshop and Illustrator. But what is the best way to acheive this? Do I open a new file in Illustrator and delete all extra colors except the two contained in my duotone and then place the image? I tried this, but Illustrator automatically converted my image to CMYK again.

If anyone has any suggestions for me, I would really appreaciate it. Thanks so much!
Kaff

 

[blueark]

Spot colors are a bit tricky in Illustrator. If you embed your duotone, it will take on the color mode of your file (in this case, CMYK), whereas if you just link the duotone, it should preserve the Pantone colors. There should be a link option in the Place Image dialog box.

 

[kaff]

Thanks so much for that--it worked like a charm, and imported my colors no problem! My only issue now is that the image is previewing horribly in Illustrator and is printing the same way. The original quality of the image is high, so I know that's not the problem; is this just the way that Illustrator deals with EPS files? And I can I only print it at full quality with a PostScript printer? Thanks again for your response, it was very helpful.

 

[blueark]

Have a look in Edit > Preferences > Files & Clipboard...

Illustrator 10 has an option there to use a low resolution proxy for linked EPS files. I'm not sure what versions of Illustrator have this option (I know version 8 didn't, not sure about 9). Anyway, if it's there, just deselect it and you should have a better image to work with.