Skip to main content
M
mackatdesign
Participating Frequently
November 27, 2012
Question

Acrobat Preview mode doesn't show PMS spot colors

  • November 27, 2012
  • 2 replies
  • 19646 views

Out of the blue, the preview mode in Acrobat 9 is showing PMS spot colors as black, CMYK colors show up fine. The actual pdf itself is fine. This happens when I make pdfs "High Quality" or "Press Quality" from Indesign 6. Curiously, it does not happen when I make a "Smallest File". However when I attach these pdfs to email, the spot colors appear black.

I've been using 9 for a long time and I've been using Indesign 6 for a few months now. I'm on a Mac Pro, OSX 10.6.8. I can't figure out if there is something that was unchecked or checked that is causing this problem to come up seemingly out of nowhere.

Any advice is much appreciated,

Thanks!

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

B
BlackInkCorp
Participant
March 11, 2013

I had the same issues. I have a letterhead designed in Illustrator with 3 spot colors. After saving the file as a pdf from illustrator, Mac Preview show the colors as black. I won't restate what has stated, but the issue according to my research is the lack of support of Lab Colors.

Now for an actual solution:

When you save as - pdf, change the standard from [Illustrator Default] to PDF/X-1a:2001. This allows you to see the spot colors in preview, etc. This should be sufficient for spot printing, and still allows for printing separations (I even checked myself).

Note: I had to uncheck CMYK when going to print the actual seps, but I could print the pantone spot separations just fine. In short: The good news is this seems to preserve the ability to view the colors in preview. The downside is that I think it is adding in CMYK equivalent information and that's why Preview is able to display it. I'm ok with that as long as I tell my printer to print via spot colors and not CMYK.

I hope this makes sense. I tried to explain it the best I could.

-Jason

T
Test Screen Name
Legend
November 27, 2012

Not entirely clear of the workflow, so let's see.

You design in InDesign and export.

Open that PDF in Acrobat - do you see the spot colours?

Or does it only happen after you email?

You say preview mode. Is this output preview?  So it's normally OK? But when you click on a single plate it shows as black?

Can you fill in the details...

M
mackatdesignAuthor
Participating Frequently
November 27, 2012

Yes, I design in Indesign6 and export to make a pdf. When I open the PDF, spot colors are there, everything fine. When I attach it to an email, the spot colors are black within my own email. Conversely and fortunately, the recipient does see the spot color when they get the email.

This also happens when I click on the pdf file on my hard drive to see it and the "preview" shows the spot colors in black.

Thanks!

Dov Isaacs
Dov Isaacs
Legend
December 16, 2012

Thanks for this detailed explanation, it's really helpful. In the past, the CMYK equivalents of Pantone colors were not always accurate for print purposes(and let's face it, neither is digital or offset printing) so I used the Pantone process book for more accuracy. Are you saying with CS6 conversion of spot colors to CMYK is more accurate now(if SWAP labelled)?

As to your comment on fixing other things like transparency, I can see why jpgs don't support transparency, but why doesn't Indesign support transparent color tiffs (I use .psd or eps files for that), or am I missing something?


For the Pantone spot colors, if you want accurate rendition with process colors, always use the Lab alternates. Note of course, that many of the Pantone spot colors are outside the gamut that normal CMYK printing can yield and as such, such accurate rendition is limited to the gamut restrictions.

TIFF files will transparency are supported in all Adobe CS applications. What do you think is missing?

JPEG files don't support transparency because the specification of the standard doesn't provide for transparency. (JPEG was originally designed primarily as a means of compressing photographics, not digital imagery in general!) This isn't an Adobe issue. The JPEG2000 specification does allow for transparency.

Also, EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) doesn't support transparency of any type whatsoever and should be considered a legacy graphics format for existing, non-color managed, opaque content.

          - Dov

- Dov Isaacs, former Adobe Principal Scientist (April 30, 1990 - May 30, 2021)
Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices