Composite 2 multipage PDFs

[Dave79]

Hi all. I'm stuck on a problem I'm hoping someone here would be able to help me with. Our project is a 2 color book. One color is black and the other is a PMS red. I received the black as a multipage PDF produced from scans. The red is in a separate PDF also produced from scans. The person providing the files told me that this is how her old prepress department would receive files from her and somehow they were able to composite them together. She said she believes they did it using Prinergy, but doesn't know the details. The easiest solution I could think of is two separate impositions to produce the plates, but I don't really like that solution as that don't know how I would then produce composite proofs for our client. I was able to composite a single page using layers in Acrobat, but I need to do this for a couple hundred pages, so that's not very practical. I am using Prinergy 8. I have Kodak Acrobat Plug-ins PDF Merge and PDF Compare, which I suspect may be where the answer lies, but when I used PDF merge I got my seps on two layers, where the top layer takes out the lower when refining (if I remember right, plus I think it only does 1 pg.) I have Adobe CS6 suite readily available, and current Abode CC available, though it's on a coworker's workstation, so not as available. Any readers of this post know how this? I tried to upload sample pages, but it was taking ages, so I cancelled them, but I can try again if needed. Any help would be very appreciated. 

Kodak Prinergy 8
Preps 8
Adobe CS6
Adobe CC 

[Joe]

You should be able to do it on multipage PDF's with the Kodak PDF Merge Tool. (click on attached)

[johnny_jay]

If you have Layered PDF Version option in Prinergy, You should be able to do it there.

That will allow you to merge them together.

[Dave79]

Thanks Joe. I'm back at my workstation, so I could retry PDF Merge. You are correct that it will do multiple pages at a time. Apparently that wasn't one of my hurdles. What happens is I get the error "Inputs print different inks." It moves one of the separations to the Discarded layer. If I manually move the discarded to the Output layer then apply Create Merge Output, I still only get the one separation that never got discarded. I thought maybe the issue has something to do with the files being in different color spaces, so I converted that black to a PMS black, but same results. Any ideas?

[Dave79]

@johnny_jay 
Thanks for your reply. I created a multipage layered PDF by using Kodak PDF Merge Acrobat plug-in. I didn't see any other way to add a layer to multiple pages in one operation. I refine in Workshop, making sure to have the layers I want selected, but the output is simply blank pages. I also went into the refining template and chose the Recombine option, but the result is the same.

[DCurry]

I've never done what you're trying to do, but maybe try using Magenta as the spot color instead of specifying a PMS?

[Joe]

Thanks Joe. I'm back at my workstation, so I could retry PDF Merge. You are correct that it will do multiple pages at a time. Apparently that wasn't one of my hurdles. What happens is I get the error "Inputs print different inks." It moves one of the separations to the Discarded layer. If I manually move the discarded to the Output layer then apply Create Merge Output, I still only get the one separation that never got discarded. I thought maybe the issue has something to do with the files being in different color spaces, so I converted that black to a PMS black, but same results. Any ideas?

Do you have Pitstop?

[Dave79]

Yes, I have Pitstop Pro 2019

[Joe]

Can you link me a couple of files with just a few pages in each one to joe@b4print.com using one of the free websites available?  (mailbigfile.com)

[Dave79]

Link to 2 pgs of each separation as was provided to me.

[johnny_jay]

@johnny_jay
Thanks for your reply. I created a multipage layered PDF by using Kodak PDF Merge Acrobat plug-in. I didn't see any other way to add a layer to multiple pages in one operation. I refine in Workshop, making sure to have the layers I want selected, but the output is simply blank pages. I also went into the refining template and chose the Recombine option, but the result is the same.

Sorry I am not much help.

[Dave79]

No worries. I appreciate your trying

[Joe]

Well I can combine them using Pitstop by making the black separation black only in CMYK and then remapping the black separation in the PMS red file as magenta only in CMYK. Then copying and pasting the PMS red image into the Black image file and setting it to multiply. But it is a manual process for every single page unless you can figure out how to make all of that happen via an action list.

To be honest I would just use the individual files and create a pageset and imposition for each one. Not ideal but that would be the quickest way I can think of.

[DCurry]

If you refine the red PDF in Prinergy, the refined sub-page will show up as K. But then you can re-refine the sub-pages and click on Color Mapping before you hit OK, add a PMS alias (has to be named properly, like "PANTONE 185 C"), then map the Black sep to the new alias. This will at least give you the refined sub-pages showing as red PMS.

Once you've got that, you can use InDesign and master pages and layers to place the 2 PDFs on each page (black on one layer, red on another). Still a little painful, but you'll end up with a composite result. There are scripts that will place all the pages of the PDF. For whichever sep you put on the top layer, if you place a picture box on the master page and set it to Multiply it will make it easier, too.

If you have access to variable data tools, you could take the refined sub-pages, make a list of them, and treat them as 2 different variable images on top of each other. I use SmartStream in InDesign and this would be a piece of cake.

[DCurry]

Here's the result of the variable method I described. I have K on top, set to Multiply but the scans themselves may be out of alignment which is a different problem altogether, but you get the idea that it's possible. I also must have downsampled to 300 somewhere along the line, but that's easy enough to change.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h8e6eu5e8vc6ox3/sepstest-SmartStream.pdf?dl=0