Saving a Pantone monotone or duetone for Ai use

[scottie]

One of my clients created a background in PS for use in AI. The background looks like marble. The monotone color is Pantone 877. The file was saved as a Photoshop EPS. When I'm in AI and interigate the monotone marble with my eye dropper It returns CMYK. How does one save a pantone from PS to imbed as a Pantone in AI. Or, do I need to send the Photoshop.eps marble as a separate file to my printhouse? Also, If I do separations on the file the marble background comes out as CMYK. Ace and/or Repro should be able to ace this one. Thanks

[DCurry]

Don't embed the monotone during the "Place" step. Keep it linked, then when you save the EPS you can turn on "include linked images" in the save dialog.

Just to be safe, though, include the monotone file when you submit to the print shop. They might need to mess around with it depending on their workflow.

[scottie]

I also figured out that we must convert to multchannel if using spot colors. I printed a separation of the marble effect saved as a monotone multichannel Photoshop. dsc 2.0 file. The pantone was 362 and sure enough it separated as just that...362. Now I just have to remember to check, save linked images, as you suggested...thanks again.

[The Repro Kid]

Hi scottie, you don't need to use the multi-channel format with spot colors in photoshop. Both grayscale and CMYK format can be used with spot color channels added. The gray channel or the CMYK channels can remain blank (empty). Also note that Illustrator does not allow you embed a DCS 2.0 file. Linking is your only option.

[AdobeAce]

Hi All,

Isn't it possible to save a Photoshop PDF file with a spot color?
And then couldn't the PDF be Placed into Illustrator? I don't think it would even need to be linked.

Just a thought.

PDFs just seem such much easier to deal with that DCS2. Probably because I've done so little with this DCS2.

Ace

[DCurry]

Yeah, you shouldn't have to convert to multichannel if you are using a mono or duotone.

As for Ace's PDF suggestion - as a prepress provider, I'm not crazy about saving Photoshop images as PDFs. It might work (given Ace's track record, I'm sure it does) - to be honest I've not tested it on my systems to see if it would.

Saving as PDF makes it a little harder for the prepress person down the line to figure out how you created it. A PDF can be created in so many different ways - distilling, exporting, saving as, etc. that if there is a problem with the file, we have to figure out the best way to open your file and fix it for you.

The instructions I provided were based on actual jobs that I have worked on and know to work. That certainly doesn't mean it's the only way, just the best way for my particular RIP workflow (which can be pretty picky, so when I find a method that works, I stick with it!)

[scottie]

Great info...I've emailed my 25+ print vendors to reply as to which they prefer...that way they cain't come back on me...ya right. The ones that don't respond will be getting embedded PDFs.
Thanks for all the help

[AdobeAce]

As for Ace's PDF suggestion - as a prepress provider, I'm not crazy about saving Photoshop images as PDFs. It might work (given Ace's track record, I'm sure it does) - to be honest I've not tested it on my systems to see if it would.

Saving as PDF makes it a little harder for the prepress person down the line to figure out how you created it. A PDF can be created in so many different ways - distilling, exporting, saving as, etc. that if there is a problem with the file, we have to figure out the best way to open your file and fix it for you.

Hi Dan,

There was a good reason I put so many question marks in my post. I have not tried the PDF route as yet either. So I'm not sure how good or bad an idea it is. It sure seems like a reasonable solution though.

If anyone ever tries the approach, please let us know how it works out.

Ace

:)

[DCurry]

Ace,

Did some testing with the following results (on PS/M 7 rip):

Made a duotone, saved as Photoshop PDF. When ripped, the duotone did not hold - spots broke as process.

Place the Photoshop PDF into Illustrator CS2. Saved as PDF - same as above at rip - went to process. Saved as EPS and it ripped properly.

Placed the Photoshop PDF in InDesign CS2, wrote postscript - ripped properly. Exported PDF - ripped as process.

In summary, the raw PDF seems to give the most trouble (for my setup, anyway). Getting that Photoshop PDF into some sort of postscript produces proper seps. Because the original Photoshop PDF doesn't rip properly, I would advise my customers to not use that format for duotones. Other printers' mileage may vary, of course!

[AdobeAce]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for taking the time to do the testing.

Ace