yes I know its the non USA spelling of colour... thats how we roll down this way. 

Anyway, the bosses want to create a colour swatch book to print on the indigo. We have sheets at the moment but they want something a bit easier to hold, that they could print for a few clients.

Before I dither around for ages, i thought I would just see if anyone out there has done something and how it worked out. Along the lines of a pantone book.

cheers!

Something that has bugged me for awhile in Indesign, clients using black vignettes on top of colour images and causing high ink coverage, which goes through to the exported pdf, even when using the correct export settings.

Generally I get supplied pdfs files from clients and just fix it with pitstop (rasterise the vignette and image, and then run the TAC reduction on it)... this can get quite painstaking when there are a lot of images with vignettes, but at least it can now be done with pitstop and im grateful for that!

But... on occasions i get supplied the indesign file so i can start there instead and re export the file, but I have yet to figure out if there is a way to get it to work? It always exports the file with high ink. The webby net aint giving me much help. Maybe I need to flatten the images somehow out of indesign? I have tried the 'isolate blending' check box in the gradient feather box and that helps a little but doesnt fix it.

Any ideas?

I quite often get files that have colour vignettes on top of 4 col images and it often sends the TAC way up. I've found that the TAC reduction doesnt seem to affect the vignettes that much, seems to effect the images mostly and it can even send the TAC higher in the vignette areas.

Exporting from Indesign using SWAP settings also doesnt tend to reduce the TAC in the vignettes: its works on the images but not the vignettes?

Apart from manually adjusting the vignettes which tends to affect the colour, is there anything else I can try in pitstop?

So I'm contemplating a change from preps, currently on 7 but I have had a few issues with some pdfs created out of preps (see other threads if interested) and given that its about $600 US to update to 8 and the issues will still remain I see very little point.
Not to mention the complete lack of technical help available for those of us who have the standalone version and are not using Prinergy. (Been told by the country supplier that unless you have a service contract with them they wont even answer emailed technical questions, thats kodak for ya).
We also now only have the smaller presses so dont often have the complicated impos we used to have with the A2.

I've pretty much decided that there might be better options out there to investigate... which is nice as that was never an option when we first started with preps, many years ago... well except dynostrip and that one sucked bigtime.
So i would like some opinions from the community... anyone out there using other options?

Imposition studio is one i am looking at... they have a really good fully functioning demo so I have been able to trial a few files and so far so good (i.e the issue I have out of preps does NOT happen!), cost is pretty low but i have no idea of support? (think I will email them and see how they respond to queries). I havent even found any forums for it but It looks like it will do the things I want from what I have looked at.

Imposititon Wizard: I have yet to look at that one.

Quite Imposing: I used this a few years ago but it was pretty clunky and I dont think it will do what I want... but I have not looked at the latest version so I dont really know.

I think I would prefer a standalone software rather than an acrobat plugin

so any ideas people?

I have this annoying issue that pops up from time to time... has happened for years, I just flatten the files to fix it, but that only helps If I see it before print!

Pdf file output from preps, with a spot colour, are showing that spot colour as white (not invisible because when I check the pdf wireframe the objects are there). The spot colour object wont print to the digital rip either.
Of course flattening the file (or converting to process) before imposing fixes it but once again its another thing I need to visually check on the preps output file (like that wierd vignette text issue).
Oddly enough it shows correct on the preps preview window before print.
Occasionally one spot colour will do this and another one in the same file will be fine. (I had a spot colour logo that lost its inside colour, but the outside spot colour was fine)

 As a general rule I dont convert spot colours before imposing them, usually let the printers rip determine its process colour equivalent as it can change the colour a bit... but once again I am starting to think I should.

This particular file is even more irritating as its the third version from the client and the first two were fine and didnt have the preps output issue, so I am trying to see what may be different about the third file (if anything... I cant see anything so far)... or is it just preps being a f...ktard?

I have found another person with the issue from an old thread but the 'fix' didnt work for me at all.
http://www.mygua.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6544

Anyone who wants to look at the file or have any ideas?

I have got a bit annoyed with this issue with acrobat and seemingly the only way to stop it is to install and run acrobat X instead
I found a thread on the adobe site, and posted on that and adobe were the usual unhelpful to everyone else who posted. So i started a bug report as well and have had a couple more come out of the woodwork with the same issue... and it seems a few things have been tried to no avail.
Figured i would post on here under a new thread in case others have the issue and want to add their thoughts and vote.

https://acrobat.uservoice.com/forums/590923-acrobat-for-windows-and-mac/suggestions/31664974-acrobat-cc-excessive-ram-usage?tracking_code=efbd30a6704418ddf7db113578e67f10

my work around is to restart acrobat a lot... i.e. maybe hourly or so if I'm barely using it, maybe every 15 mins if I'm using it a lot

hey all, never actually started a topic before so here goes!

I get the occasional issue with some parts of pdf files not imposing correctly in preps: they step fine, but some vignettes seem to change on the output pdf file. I fix the file by ps the files via distiller and then they work fine. But this has bugged me before and I wonder why it is?
Using Preps 7, Mac 10.10.5
Last time this happened on a large header (the whole vignette from green to blue had sorta shifted across the whole stepped file, like it wasnt 'contained' within its frame on its own page?) and we could spot it on the digital press proof but this one is actually really small and only the client found it (luckily on the press proof as well).
pic 1; on the left side see the pointer to the product, the right side one has vanished (actually it is still there according to pitstop and even has color etc in it, pic 2)
What would be the reason? At a guess the client has definately used some sort of transparency that is causing the problem but what is it and how do we stop it from happening (without having to ps every file we get)?