DCS2>Composite

[frailer]

Not sure where to put this. I think it's an Illy issue. I'm the go-between on it. Hope you guys don't mind. I know you all love a challenge.

Here's the "issue". Our friendly vendor proofing guy is coming at 8AM our time tomorrow, [when most of you are hitting the sack or halfway through a late shift]. He has a task to output a Black Magic, [he's gonna do it here], for a potential customer who has given him a "test" file. It's apparently from China; Is an Illy file with a placed "DCS2 out of PhotoShop". Unfortunately I don't have the file myself, so can't fool with it. He says he's gonna play with it at home tonight...but...the problem seems to be that he is having difficulty outputting a Composite file, [or at least a "nice" one], because of the DCS2 image. I think, at the least, it's lo-res, but he seems to be signalling other problems with it.
We shall see in the morning, but does anyone have any general thoughts on DCS2 files out of PhSh, going into Illy, with a view to Composite output for a Print Engine RIP? Have already suggested to him the "Save As" PDF out of Illy, a la Mordy, but that's a more general issue.

Any comments/input welcome. They're a customer-friendly vendor team, so am happy to help out, if I can. Poor bugger's stressin' a bit...

P.S. I won't be able to furnish more detail than this, unfortunately. But shall post back on the result.   :smiley:

[Joe]

Do they have access to the DCS2? If they do I think they could save themselves some headaches if they would save it out of Photoshop as a PSD and be done with it. I'm guessing trying to output a composite from Illy with a DCS2 file is giving them the composite low res 72 dpi preview instead of the high res separations. Not sure of your RIP for the Black Magic but can you output seps and have the BlackMagic combine back into a composite for proofing?

[jezza]

No need for a DCS form PS if it's going into Illy. Just save the psd and Illy will honour the spot colours when it's placed/imported.

DCS files are dead

[beermonster]

yea dcs is dead - almost....

psd is best - but if you can't then there's a problem <well obviously beer - thats what the threads about!>

the low res issue is either because some of the dcs elements are missing <unlikely> or as a result of it not reading the low res nicely, and not being able to resolve a high res composite - in fact - quark has similar issues. saving the eps with "include placed images" embeds the dcs in there and retains colour info - if you follow the steps below

here's one solution

place dcs in ullustrator and export as eps - ENSURING that "preserve spot colours " is checked - place said job in indy and thank the gods

if you dont have indy, try placing the eps back in illy - dunno the results, always use indy myself...and i always have to use this trick for quack where a pdf out is needed for a job with a dcs in - which we all know quack cannot do.

hope that makes sense - more importantly - i hope it works!

[Zimmy3]

If it has to stay as a DCS,what is the composite file for and what kind of Composite? postscript? PDF?

[frailer]

If it has to stay as a DCS,what is the composite file for and what kind of Composite? postscript? PDF?

For PDF>Print Engine RIP.

..and thanks all!    :smiley:

[Zimmy3]

After pondering it over I don't believe it's feasable.(a good looking PDF working with a DCS image)

The believe the whole idea behind a DCS was to not have to preview a high res file.

Someone correct me if im wrong here.

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

The trick to DCS files with spot colors are to save them in Multi-channel mode/DCS 2.0 As single file EPS with preview. That is the only way I can get them to work without saving them as CMYK PSD files. And, as far as I have tested, I can get ID CS2, and Quark to accept them. And successfully PDF out.

[frailer]

Well, here's the feedback, or a rough summary as I understand it. He got around the DCS2 problem before he got here, by, from what I can gather, going the .psd route.

What was making it choke on the Print Engine RIP was another element in the job comprised of a zillion points in an image. Sound familiar, beermonster? These will now become known as "beer chokers".   :laugh:   It went onto another layer and was rasterised. Nothing much more exciting to tell really.

Thanks again for the input.    :smiley:

[beermonster]

haaaahaaaaaaaaa cool :laugh:

sorted then - good

i've not tried the multi channel trick - i'll give it a whirl when i get a min or three