Convert Spots to Custom CMYK

[Lammy]

Is there a way with Pitstop to do a global change and to make PMS colors into custom mixed CMYK values? We have a client that has developed their own mix when their spot colors are printed in CMYK, but their designers still use just the standard PMS values from Indesign or whatever.

I currently have a 44 page book with these 4 spots on every page.   :sad:

[Farabomb]

Global change, change color, pick the spot color, convert to your cmyk breakdown. Pretty sure that should work

[DigiCorn]

  what he said

make sure you have Run on: Complete document and ALL (not even/odd) on the palette

[DCurry]

If this customer uses this color all the time, save the Global as an Action List and Bob's yer uncle for next time.

[Lammy]

Thanks all! That's just what I needed. Unfortunately the designer was not consistent with the color. On the up side 90% of the book was the right CMYK mix, very little was actually the spot color and some was just the wrong process color all together.

[frailer]

There's also GC>Color> 'Change Specific Color'. Use it often here. Another way of skinning the cat.

... hmmm, maybe that's what fbomb's referring to...   :undecided:   And maybe I'm being too specific.   :laugh:

[Farabomb]

Could be, I'm more than a few revisions behind. Could be easily be the same thing.

[fishshed]

We have jobs that print at 4, possibly even 5 now   , print vendors and I'm trying to find a way to get one of the more-touchy presses to match the color coming off the other presses as closely as possible.  All are digital by the way and I'm attempting to convert colors to their mapped equivalents on their press on our end.

All of our covers (4000+ custom designs) are produced using ID templates consisting of vector- and text-based objects (some with effects like shadows), in addition to logos and such that our customers add to the templates. 

I'm trying to convert either spot- or CMYK-specific values to other CMYK values.  The 2 attached examples are the same file - one with a 2-spot EPS for the logo on the top color and the other with the entire thing converted to CMYK.

I'm trying GC > Remap color, but it won't work as I currently have it going.  It only changes the bottom blue (vector-based) to the proper color I need, but doesn't address the spots from the EPS.  Is that even possible?  The problem is that the print vendor for these can change at any minute, so getting this setup to work on the fly would be much easier that manually adjusting color for these logos once the vendor is determined.  And since I don't have control over that decision, I'm trying to lessen the pain on the poor people prepping these for print.

Trying to convert the "SDI-Red" to 19/100/72/7 and the "SDI-Dark Blue" to 95/37/0/25.  again, either through the spot change or through CMYK-to-CMYK.

[DigiCorn]

Are the .eps with spot vector or raster? You can remap some raster stuff like this screenshot:

[DigiCorn]

You can also use the global editor to "Convert to Color Space," but it screws with your densities, so if you already have a lot of screens, that won't work.

There's a way to record an action set like in Photoshop for automation, where you add an item to the Action List, but I don't have a lot of experience doing this. Basically, you'd hit the record button, do what you want, and save it. Then apply to all pages.

[fishshed]

Are the .eps with spot vector or raster? You can remap some raster stuff like this screenshot:

In this case, I took a CMYK raster version and converted it to a 2-color spot within Photoshop.  So, it's raster and most, if not all, will be - since they come to us straight from the customer as JPG or TIF.

I got it to work through the Inspector, but the EAL won't work.  Maybe I'll rewrite it from scratch to see if maybe I missed something the first 30 times I tried.  LOL.  Or, is it your understanding that doing "raster" remaps don't really work through actions?  Just weird that you can do it, but then again, you can't!     Again, the CMYK GC remap works fine for the bottom blue, since it's simply a box on the page assigned a value.

Thanks for the inital guidance!  I'll keep working on it and see what else I can come up with.  I'd really like to just convert the files to CMYK PDF and GC then, but I'm starting to think that's not a possibility.

This press I'm trying to "help out" has been a total pita for a year now.  I guess the rip and even impo sucks bad, but there's not really a better option (or so I'm told).  Our other printers simply run their own curves to all jobs to consistenly hit our default spots.  It's worked for years just fine across the board, but this damn thing...  UGH

[Greg_Firestone]

The problem is that the print vendor for these can change at any minute, so getting this setup to work on the fly would be much easier that manually adjusting color for these logos once the vendor is determined.  And since I don't have control over that decision, I'm trying to lessen the pain on the poor people prepping these for print.

Hi fishshed,

I feel you pain. Changes need to come from the top down or else you'll be pulling out your hair in no time. There's no way you'll be able to keep up with constantly modifying color builds. It's time consuming, becomes difficult to manage, and is really counter productive. The challenge is to create a case to convince the decision makers that major changes are needed. Start keeping a tab on things. You'll need to show how much time and money is wasted chasing different color builds. The fact that your vendors can change makes this even more of a challenge.

You mention one printer/vendor is more touchy. If a CMYK build is within the standard gamut and they can't achieve a satisfactory color match, time to move on to a different printer that will. It's not your job to tweak files.

Are they all printed on the same substrate? If not, this could create issues. Do the printers/vendors ever recommend specific ICC profiles? I'd stick to standard profiles (SWOP, Gracol, etc.) and provide your printers CMYK files versus files with Spot. Give them a hardcopy proof to match (if possible) assuming you have a decent in house proofing system.

Greg

[Joe]

Agreed with Greg and...

The problem is that you are trying to achieve color values that are not built into the files. For example, the CMYK built in values of SDI-Red is C17 - M100 - Y87 - K9 and SDI-Dark Blue is C100 - M67 - Y0 - K23. Doing a straight conversion to CMYK does give you those values. Using a global change can easily change the vector part to whatever values you want but it won't work for the raster files. The most logical thing would be to change the built in color values of SDI-Red and SDI-Dark Blue in the originals to match the values you want them to become. Then just a straight conversion from spot to CMYK will make all of the values read what you want it to read whether it is raster or vector.

[fishshed]

Well, to really put a topper on the problem:

The press that's the issue is a small digital press we bought and installed here in-house!  Not at all my decision, but much of my position and responsibilities here is dealing with our cover print vendors.  All of the external partners we have are fine.  Their workflows are all different, but we use one vendor's interpretation of our color swatches as the basis for all the other printers' color-matching curve setups.  And again, they all work pretty well and there isn't much of a difference in the final color from different printers despite all of their own differences - digital, off-set, water-based, toner-based, waterless.

The issue here is that this press was brought in to do our very low-volume work (less than 350 or so).  Generally, we use this press for re-orders of small quantities for jobs that were initially produced at another one of the printers to produce the original quantity of, say, 1000.  So, the problem really shows up when they have 1000 from one vendor that's correct, then we have to do a TON of color work like this in order to get them another 150 or whatever that needs to match the originals.  Cost-wise, this thing costs pennies compared to the others, but this crap is enough to really give you a headache.

Yeah, not a fun position to be in.  I'm trying to get them to simply "figure it out" on their end, since I've spent 10+ years making sure the rest of our printers are all on the same page - and they are.  We have 2 overseas printers that I've got to print color like our US-based ones to - including on different substrate.  So, I was just wanting to see if i missed something with all of this that might make it work for this stupid thing.

If not, it's time to move on to my next project and let the guys in back find out how to make this stuff work properly on their end, without adding more to our current workflow for jobs as small as these are and that might switch at the last second.


Thanks for the feedback guys!  If you think of something else that might work, toss it my way!

[Joe]

Well, to really put a topper on the problem:

<snip>

Thanks for the feedback guys!  If you think of something else that might work, toss it my way!

Well as you've found the conversion of the vector part is easy. The raster part, the only way I can see is a straight conversion to CMYK and then edit in Photoshop to get your desired values. Of the files you posted, the top half is raster. Why is that? If you had an EPS it seems somewhere in the world the vector part of it should be out there. It looks like someone, at some point, needlessly rasterised it.