[bmmp]

I get real close, but I havn't been able to get spot colors to Display AND Plate/Rip correctly.

Here's the closest I've ever gotten.

1. Convert Art to Multichannel from CMYK.
2. Arrange channels with Spot Colors (select PMS colors), but save each plate with the names Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and/or Black.
3. Save Art as Photoshop DCS 2 (eps)
4 Place Art in Quark, etc.
5. PDF

Now that I have the PDF, it looks like it should, it PDFs, BUT it doesn't plate correctly. All the art is flattened to the Black Plate.

Has anyone been able to get PMS channels in photoshop to look and plate as they should?

[siliconwarrior]

You shouldn't need to save the channels with the process names, is there a reason why you're doing this?

You ought to be able to keep the default spot colour names from PS and then have them show up in your colours pallette in Quark.

[bmmp]

you know silicon, your question made me realise something.

I wonder if I can keep all the colors with in Quark and Photoshop to fall on just the required colors and black that our prepress guys will be able to extract just those plates.

Quark doesn't let us remove the CMY from the document, so those process plates are there no matter what, but they should be able to ignore them and focus on just the spot.

What we have been doing in the past is make everything nice and colorful for the client, then, we convert everything to ugly Process only colors for riping and plating. Then they use the pantone inks on the press instead of the process inks and yada yada yada...

[siliconwarrior]

That would be a better way of working. Since version 5 Quark has offered the ability to output only the used separations in a document, so your prepress guys should have no problem.

A couple of things to bear in mind though:

1. Photoshop (and all Adobe apps for that matter) use different spot colour naming conventions to Quark. A typical Photoshop colour will be named 'PANTONE 260 C' whilst in Quark will be 'PANTONE 260 CVC' - these are treated as two different colours at output. Make sure that you edit the colour name in one of the apps to be sure that everything comes out on the same plate.

2. Multichannel DCS 2.0 files use a low res preview for composite output. In order for this to be a colour preview, make sure that you select a single file colour composite preview when saving your EPS (the default, for reasons best known to Adobe, is single colour).

<crowbar>
If you get a chance I recommend giving InDesign a try - you can download the trial from Adobe's website. The latest version will allow you to preview separations in your workspace to make sure everything is as it should be before handing over to prepress.
</crowbar>

[buddhabelly]

Originally posted by siliconwarrior:
That would be a better way of working. Since version 5 Quark has offered the ability to output only the used separations in a document, so your prepress guys should have no problem.

A couple of things to bear in mind though:

1. Photoshop (and all Adobe apps for that matter) use different spot colour naming conventions to Quark. A typical Photoshop colour will be named 'PANTONE 260 C' whilst in Quark will be 'PANTONE 260 CVC' - these are treated as two different colours at output. Make sure that you edit the colour name in one of the apps to be sure that everything comes out on the same plate.

2. Multichannel DCS 2.0 files use a low res preview for composite output. In order for this to be a colour preview, make sure that you select a single file colour composite preview when saving your EPS (the default, for reasons best known to Adobe, is single colour).

<crowbar>
If you get a chance I recommend giving InDesign a try - you can download the trial from Adobe's website. The latest version will allow you to preview separations in your workspace to make sure everything is as it should be before handing over to prepress.
</crowbar>

1. If you already have the spot colors defined in Quark, after you import from PS you can redifine all corresponding spots from quark to use the PS pms names. Alternatively, in PS you could manually change the channel names to match the Quark names. 6 of one, half dozen of the other. Actually, this depends on how many time you need to change the name. If you're using a bunch of MultiChannel DCS, I think it would be easier to just redefine the colors in Quark. Is the keyboard shortcut still F12? or shitf+F12? Been awhile.

Also, depending on your printer, they may have a system like Rampage that lets you remap colors when they go to plate. Ask your prepress gurus.

2. In my experience, this depends on the RIP station used. Last time I tried this on a Rampage system, I needed to use multifile DCS with composite preview, but I think this was something to do with Quark 4. Things may have changed with the newest versions of software.

I don't understand why you are naming the plates as CMYK. If these colors are not actually used in the PS file, simply delete these channels. In prepress, they should know what colors the job is going to be and simply not plate the CMY channels form Quark.

[gadster]

Just make sure they don't modify your dcs file. Depending on their color settings, they could buggerize your file as they open it. (eg: make it cmyk - I have seen this happen!!) Get them to print seps (pdf will do), straight from QXP, for proofing.

[JacobyO]

Most RIPs nowadays use composite postscript files that allow the trapping to be done by more sophisticated systems. For this reason, good prepress techs will break the file down into a process conversion. For example, if you are running a 3 color job that is made up of PMS 186, PMS 123, and Black, you would convert it to the following.

PMS 186 to the Magenta Channel
PMS 123 to the Yellow Channel
Black would remain Black
and the cyan channel would be left empty

Try to match the colors as best you can to the density values of the respective process color in order to trap correctly.

Printing to rips using direct PMS recognition tends to be a bit more of a pain. I suggest finding out what kind of image setter, RIP, and workflow the people who are doing your output are using.

[bmmp]

ah. yes Jacoby, that is what we do now, we break down the PMS colors to corresponding CMYK plates and I HATE doing it. It creates more work for me and I've been hell bent on finding a solution, and I did!

Thanks everyone! Here is my documented Spot Color Process.
This works great because not only does this LOOK like how it will print (instead of converting to process colors) but it WILL PDF and you can just ignore the process CMY plates.

1 - Determine Spot Color(s)

2 - Design or Convert all Spot color Graphics to MultiChannel in Photoshop (not CMYK) and watch for overlapping colors! (Colors should no overlap except for black). Remove all other channels except for the spot colors and black.

3 - Save as DCS 2, EPS, single composite and Bring into Quark.

4 - When placing the Multichannel EPS, Quark will automatically bring in the spot colors into the Color Palette. If the palette already has Spot colors being used, be sure that the channel name in PS matches the color used in Quark, exactly.

5 - Design, Proof and PDF.

6 - Send to Printer/Prepress with instructions as to which channels to plate (or) delete all other colors from the document prior to PDFing the quark file to prevent confusion.

Step 6 is a little important as the job could still go out on all 4 colors if they are not paying attention.

thanks all.

[vinland]

Using Quark 4.1 and Photoshop 7, Illustrator 10.

If the spot/process file is from Photoshop, add the extra channel for your spot. Don't rename it, leave it the way Photoshop names it- sometimes i've seen RIPs drop the spot channel that's renamed (for example, on our FUJI proofs, the proofer has to 'assume and simulate' a spot colour in the RIP. that's for proofing only and perhaps a different thread.) Save it as a DCS file.

Then, place the file in Quark. If you've already designed the page in Quark with existing Spot colours, here's what we do- before you place the final DCS file, let's say the spot is PMS 300. In the colour palette, change the name to 'Spot BLUE' or something arbitrary like that. Reason being, so when you reimport the DCS, there's no confusion as to which is the proper Spot colour. Then, once the DCS is in there, delete the 'Spot BLUE' from the colour palette and change it to the spot that came in with the DCS file.

Output with Spot & Process plan on. The spots you want will show up.

Print out a separated verion of your pdf and mark it to show where colour is for Spot and process. You'll also see any probelms where the process colours overlap (aside from trapping).

In other cases, say a composite fuji, mark all spots (circle with china pencil etc).

this has always worked for us. good luck