Adobe Community: Need help with producing non CMYK mono pages to print on one plate?

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Oct 16, 2007

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1. Rob Day,

Aug 16, 2012 12:51 PM in reply to acknowledged4791

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Grayscale and black & white 1-bit images export to the CMYK black plate, so if the text pages have no RGB, Lab, or CMYK colors that include CMY values, you print the black plate only to get the 1-color page.

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2. Peter Spier,

Aug 16, 2012 12:55 PM in reply to acknowledged4791

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Is this a digital print, or press?

What exactly is the printer telling you needs to be corrected?

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3. acknowledged4791,

Aug 16, 2012 1:10 PM in reply to Peter Spier

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Its a 4 plate press. paper on a roll.

I've been quoted that as long as the 16 colour pages are on the same 'deck' which is of 16 pages, and the other 3 decks are 1 plate black (and grey) then all is well.

They have looked at the pdfs I've exported from InDesign and apparently even the black text pages are CMYK and therefore made up of 4 colours?

Not something I get but anyway I need the mono pages to be pritnable using just 1 plate, so I presume that means not in CMYK.

Have no idea if this is to do with the export settings or within INDesign itself. The printers say they are not used to InDesign so can't advice.

I have until 1pm GMT to get this sorted or they woun't get printed.

arrrrrghh

Please advise.

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4. Peter Spier,

Aug 16, 2012 1:15 PM in reply to acknowledged4791

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If you've added any of ID's automatic marks during export they will appear on all four plates, but even if you didn't ID will have output blank CMY paltes for those pages with K only content. In either case, for press output the printer should be able to simply ignore those plates (as long as he knows which pages are K only), as Rob said earlier. Are you sure all of the color is on a ingle set of plates and not inserted somewhere that it shouldn't be?

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5. Rob Day,

Aug 16, 2012 1:30 PM in reply to acknowledged4791

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They have looked at the pdfs I've exported from InDesign and apparently even the black text pages are CMYK and therefore made up of 4 colours?

That would be a problem. It sounds like you are getting a color conversion on export. What are your PDF export settings? The safest bet in this case would be the PDF/X-1a preset. Also make sure your black text is the default [Black] swatch or 0|0|0|100 CMYK

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6. Marcy McGuire,

Aug 16, 2012 1:32 PM in reply to acknowledged4791

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If the black only pages really have no color than the cmy will be empty. Can't the printer just ignore the empty plates?

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7. acknowledged4791,

Aug 16, 2012 1:34 PM in reply to Peter Spier

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OK

I've gone back and look at the colour pallet some of the greys are

[Black] 50%

some are C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=50

and

some are C=100 M=76 Y=46 K=0

Which do I need to use for the 1 plate, C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=50?

And therefore when they come to print they just ignore the CMY and print only the K=50?

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8. Marcy McGuire,

Aug 16, 2012 1:39 PM in reply to acknowledged4791

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Have you turned off Rich Blacks? Those print as CMYK.

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9. acknowledged4791,

Aug 16, 2012 1:43 PM in reply to Marcy McGuire

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Sorry to be stupid but how do you turn this off?

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10. Peter Spier,

Aug 16, 2012 1:44 PM in reply to Marcy McGuire

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The Appearance of Black settings have no effect on exported PDF.

The third gray- the one with values in C,M, and Y is a problem. That would indicate most likely they were RGB that LOOKS like grayscale, not true grayscales.

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11. Rob Day,

Aug 16, 2012 1:47 PM in reply to acknowledged4791

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I've gone back and look at the colour pallet some of the greys are...

Looking at the swatch panel doesn't really tell you anything because an object could have its own color, which isn't in the Swatches panel. Also, colors could change on Export depending on your settings.

To start look at the pages with Separations Preview turned on. You can turn off the Black channel and easily see any objects with CMY values:

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12. Rob Day,

Aug 16, 2012 1:53 PM in reply to acknowledged4791

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[Black] 50% and C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=50 are identical colors

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13. acknowledged4791,

Aug 16, 2012 1:56 PM in reply to Peter Spier

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So either of the following would be ok for a starter ?

[Black] 50%

some are C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=50

for text just created in InDesign.

But for imported black Psd images for instance thats another matter?

I thought InDesign was the industry standard these days, apparently just for digital print?

Not as easy as it should be all this.

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14. Marcy McGuire,

Aug 16, 2012 1:58 PM in reply to Peter Spier

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Thanks Peter, I was under the impression they did. If you use working CMYK as the destination would it convert RGB to CMYK? And this is why she's seeing it on the plates?

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15. Peter Spier,

Aug 16, 2012 2:06 PM in reply to Marcy McGuire

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If there are RGB images, any CMYK destination is going to yeild CMYK, not grayscale. The same would be true if the files were saved in CMYK and had pixels only on the black channel, but there was a conversion (without preserving numbers) to a differnt CMYK space.

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16. Peter Spier,

Aug 16, 2012 2:09 PM in reply to acknowledged4791

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acknowledged4791 wrote:
I thought InDesign was the industry standard these days, apparently just for digital print?

This is not about digital vs press output, but rather color management and conversion. InDesign CS6 supports export to Grayscale for color documents, but it would make ALL of your file grayscale, and you don't want that, so it's up to you to be sure that any images you use that are supposed to have only black ink are saved in either grayscale or bitmap mode.

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17. Rob Day,

Aug 16, 2012 2:33 PM in reply to Marcy McGuire

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I was under the impression they did.

The Appearance of Black pref only applies to the appearance of black on RGB devices (screen display and composite printers). Most CMYK profiles display 0|0|0|100 black as a lighter value than absolute black, which is what happens on press—60|50|50|100 prints blacker than 0|0|0|100 on an offset press.

If for some reason you want to override the CMYK profile's appearance (i.e. your document's destination is an RGB screen and not a press) and force 0|0|0|100 black to be absolute, you can choose Display All Blacks as Rich Blacks. This only affects display, composite printing, or export to an RGB destination.

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18. Rob Day,

Aug 16, 2012 2:43 PM in reply to acknowledged4791

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But for imported black Psd images for instance thats another matter?

Grayscale Photoshop images always separate to the black plate (no CMY) as long as the Transparancy Blend Space is left at the default CMYK.

Not as easy as it should be all this.

How would ID know that C=100 M=76 Y=46 K=0 (dark blue?) should actually output as a black percentage?

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Need help with producing non CMYK mono pages to print on one plate?

Aug 16, 2012 12:35 PM

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