Printing Spot Colors 1

[4myinfo]

Hello! I am setting up a 2 color booklet for printing. I have indicated my colors, black-white and Pantone 281. When I pre-flight it I get the message that I have "3 process inks; 1 spot ink and publication contains 1 duplicate spot color"and CMS is on. I am new to InDesign from Quark so things are confusing to me. In The symbols I have beside my Pantone color in the swatches panel are the spot color symbol and the process color symbol. The problem appears to be coming from a gradient that is Pantone 281 and white. I don't know how that would cause the problem but, that is what shows in the seperations preview. Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[eugenetyson]

Go to Window>Output>Separations

On the VIEW select Separations

You should be always given CMYK and the spot colour should be underneath them.

Don't worry the CMYK is just standard to viewing the seps.

So if you see two spot colours there (it will be anything other the CMYK) you can go to the FLY ARROW (top right of the panel just beneath the "X")

And Select Ink Manager

Find the culprit spot colour

Select it

And give it an Ink Alias to the correct spot colour.


Other than that, if you see just CMYK and 1 other colour then all you have is 1 spot colour.

If there are 2 other colours or more then you have more than 1 spot colour and you need to Ink Alias (map) to another colour.

You could just delete the swatch from the swatch panel and it will ask to replace the swatch.

But if the swatch is used in another file (like an .ai or .eps from Illustrator) it won't let you remove it, you'd have to change it in Illy or whatever program was used to create the file.


But the Separation Panel will show you exactly what plates are going to print and what colours you're using.

For example, if you go to the Ink Manager and choose "All Spots to Process" then you will see all your Spot Colours disappear from the Separations Panel.

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[4myinfo]

Thanks Eugene! OK, in the seperation panel it shows CMYK and my 1 spot color. When I pick the spot layer it shows my spot correctly, but when I pick the cmyk it shows my spot items in cmyk also. Is this meaning my spot items are spot and cmyk?

 

[eugenetyson]

It would look that way.

You'd have to turn off the spot colour and see what that shows.

So basically you only have a EYE icon (on the left side of the panel) for the CMYK.

If you're spot is showing up, then it's in CMYK and not Spot colour.

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[4myinfo]

Thanks for your time, patience and detailed explanation! The only thing that shows as cmyk is the gradient I made with the spot and white. Any ideas why and how I can fix it?

 

[eugenetyson]

Well in the ink Manager

on the top Image you can see that the CMYK icon is beside the spot colour.

So in the top image I've said I want all of that Colour to output as CMYK

In the below image, I have selected the icon and said, I want that to be a spot colour and don't convert.

You can see the colour shows up in the Separations Panel (you will have to see "OK" for the spot to show up.

I've tested it with gradient and it works.


What you should of course do is make sure the Swatch itself is set to SPOT

You can do this by double clicking it in the Swatches Panel and choose

Colour Type: Spot (NOT PROCESS)

http://img220.imageshack.us/my.php?image=95181817al3.jpg

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[4myinfo]

WOW! Perfect explaination, you are great! It appears my black is showing as process, I double clicked in swatches but I don't get the info box to check spot, but when I roll over it in the swatches pallette it shows 100% k.

 

[eugenetyson]

All a spot colour is a colour that prints out on a separate plate.

CMYK are essentially "spot colours" (but they're not)

Really a spot colour is a colour that can't be made by mixing the CMYK colours, it's out of gamut (not in the possible combinations of these colours)

BLACK will print on a plate, as will CYAN and MAGENTA and YELLOW.

So you can use any one of these colours PLUS a SPOT colour to make a 2 colour job.

So, for example if you needed a 3 colour job.

You can use Black, Cyan and a pantone colour.

You could use 3 pantone colours.

You could use BLACK CYAN and YELLOW

It's still 3 colours.


The only thing about using PANTONE colours is that YOU CAN print them in the CMYK range, it converts the colour the nearest approximation, which is a combination of CMYK.

So if you have a 2 colour job and you decide on BLACK and PANTONE 240

If the PANTONE is set to "CONVERT TO CMYK" or as "PROCESS"

Then when you print, the PANTONE is now in the CMYK and you will have more plates than you really needed.


So, even if you are using BLACK it is still on ONE plate and the PANTONE "SPOT" colour will be on another.

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[4myinfo]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! You obviously are an awesome professional who is willing to share your expertise! God bless you !!!

 

[eugenetyson]

Ah I'm only scratching the surface too

I didn't even tell you what "screen angles" to use.

But I think you should leave that to the printers.

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[eugenetyson]

And for the record, I really enjoy helping people out and sharing the knowledge.

When I was learning this stuff (about 8 years ago) there was no internet forums or loads of websites out there. You just learned by doing and making mistakes.

But I'm glad to be able to help people through the power of the forums, because I know how hard it is when you first start out.

There's a billion things to learn, and I'm still learning to this day.

http://www.doozler.blogspot.com/

 

[4myinfo]

You're awesome and humble too! Thanks for not giving brain overload ;o)

 

[Mooseman74]

Hi eugenetyson,

I'm having a similar problem with a newsletter I'm working on. I originally used to wrong pantone's for some of the features/text, but switched them to the correct ones. But...now when i do the preflight I get the 4 Process colors/4 spot colors, 1 duplicate spot color error. I think this is being caused by one of the incorrect pantones. when I follow your instructions above I only have the option of giving the color an incorrect alias...the correct alias for it is greyed out when I open up the dropdown list while in the Ink Manager.

The preflight works fine if I choose "All spots to process" but will this affect the printing of this file?

Any more help would be really appreciated.

 

[apepp]

...is this a spot color printing job?

...if it is meant to be then, yes, changing to CMYK will effect the printing completely...

...how pantones do you have in your swatches palette in indesign?

...just the two?

Andrew

 

[apepp]

...to add...

...you can delete color swatches from indesign and replace with another target spot color, the problems happen when you have imported spot colors from another program, like photoshop or indesign...

Andrew