Acrobat Pro is changing a banner colour during redaction

[StuartMTaylor]

I have a magazine that has a blue banner top and bottom of the title page with an image in the middle. They are separate containters that overlap slightly at meeting lines. Redacting is changing the blue banner to pink. There is no redaction on the front page. All redaction is on the inside front cover and inside rear cover. It's a monthly magazine and it has done many successfully but recently two issue have turned pink. Any thoughts on where I should look? The original document is produced in InDesign and is saved as smalled file size, Acrobat 6 (PDF 1.5) Compatibility

 

[puja30954509ju4l]

The PDF export settings for those pages are set to "Embed All Fonts." This option can cause PDF files to be larger, but it can also help to prevent problems with transparency. If the PDF export settings for those pages are not set to "Embed All Fonts," then the redacted text may be converted to a different color when the PDF is exported.

[JR Boulay]

Can you share (a few pages of) this magazine?

[StuartMTaylor]

As requested, here are a few pages. I have provided the cover plus 3 pages from inside. I don't immediately want to share the inside cover where the redactions take place since that is private information. I did a quick test redacting some of the other text and the problem does not occur 😞

Stuart

[Guest]

Stuart,

Were you (or JR) able to find a solution to this issue? As I'm sure you can attest, it's beyond frustrating and I need this resolved like, right NOW.

It's Friday afternoon, and I could leave if I had this document submitted.

Here's hoping you've had better luck than me!

J...

[StuartMTaylor]

Sadly not. I had to go a different route completely.

Stuart

[JR Boulay]

Sorry, I mess the answer because I was on holiday.

I cannot reproduce the issue, I can redact this PDF without seeing anything pink.

[Luke Jennings3]

The sample pdf from Stuart uses Reflex Blue (a spot color) for the background color, I believe redaction converts all colors to rgb, I'm not sure why spot colors are not converting correctly, but converting all colors to rgb or cmyk before redaction should probably fix the issue. You could also use the InDesign ink manager to convert all spot colors to process before export to pdf. It's good practice to use spot colors only when they will actually be used for printing.

[StuartMTaylor]

Luke

This document is physically printed. The pdf is a backup available to members.

Stuart

[Luke Jennings3]

Is the document printing with the spot color Reflex Blue (as a 5th ink color)? If not, change it to process in the InDesign Swatches panel, does that fix your issue? Also, I assume you are viewing your pdf in Acrobat, check for any Acrobat updates. You might consider placing the item to be redacted on a separate InDesign layer and then export two pdfs from InDesign, one with the copy to be redacted, and one without. Use the InDesign export setting PDF/X-4 for the print version and "smallest file size" for the email version (or save-as optimized pdf from Acrobat to reduce size and use PDF/X-4 for both versions).

Redacting in Acrobat does apparently change all colors to RGB for me (on a Mac). Open the Output preview tool and go to Show: RGB.

 

[JR Boulay]

When I redact this document, or others, the spot colour remains unchanged.

Redacting just add "Device gray" in the list.

[JR Boulay]

What a strange document!
When I use the Output Preview the Pantone appears pink. But only the first time, if I close it and reopen it the colours are displayed correctly every time thereafter.
You have to quit and relaunch Acrobat to reproduce this behaviour.

[JR Boulay]

"Redacting in Acrobat does apparently change all colors to RGB for me (on a Mac). Open the Output preview tool and go to Show: RGB."

Luke Jennings3, what do you see in Convert Colors?

[Luke Jennings3]

The colors shown in Convert Colors is contradicting the Output preview tool. When the redacted pdf is placed into InDesign, the spot color is gone.

I'm not sure what is going on, but avoiding spot colors when they are not needed is probably a good practice.

Perhaps redaction is removing color information from the document, and Acrobat is trying to compensate?

[JR Boulay]

After redaction, it's ok for me:

[Luke Jennings3]

To redact, I go to Tools> Redact> (select some type on page 3)> Apply> Sanitize & remove hidden info> Continue> Save. Do you do the same?

[JR Boulay]

Good point!

Usually I don't use Sanitize & remove hidden info, but when I use Sanitize & remove hidden info I get the same result as you.