Inspiring

Answered

Assign spot color to bitmap no longer works.

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
August 16, 2022
5 replies
4220 views

I can no longer assign a spot color to a bitmap. Its not working in 26.4.1 and also not working in 25.4.7. I don't know for sure when this happened because I haven't needed to do this in awhile sot it might have been this way for a long time.

Bug

Correct answer Kuttyjoe

OK I see the problem now. When converting to bitmap, it has to be "transparent" in the settings. White background won't work. Maybe I just forgot these details but something else seems new to me. Maybe I was wrong again, but I thought that if I did a "select all", copied a bitmap (bitmap mode) from Photoshop and pasted it into Illustrator, it would have the white background. But now, I see that it doesn't. When I paste it into Illustrator the background is transparent. Maybe I didn't notice that all these years. Anyway, thanks for the help everybody. I'll have to be careful. I assigned a black color to a black and white bmp in Illustrator, thinking that it was fine but it wasn't. When you select the image, the color palette selects the spot color so it really look like the color is assigned properly. When I do preflight, that image is not assigned with the spot color.

S

Sylvain28905090zdls

Participant

Hi,

Not sure if I understood well your problem but here is what happened to me in a similar way:

I always use bitmap files (real Bitmap mode from Photoshop not just saved as file) imported in Illustrator.

For years, Illustrator would automatically convert the white background into transparent and I was able to apply a color the black content as if it was vector.

I haven't do any update but for any reason it doesn't work anymore.

Maybe someone here knows why and how to reactivate that nice simple option?

Thanks

Best,

Sylvain

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Works for me in 28.5 saved as .psd or .tif. Mac Ventura.

What system do you use?

Ton Frederiks

Community Expert

Thanks everyone but I need to keep the bitmap files (or even .tif or .psd if it is the only way) as an external element imported in my designs to illustrator. When I make some changes in the bitmap files, then it automatically update it in Illustrator and things are easy and secured.

Posted a bug report on UserVoice, please vote:

https://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/601447-illustrator-desktop-bugs/suggestions/48443915-bmp-bitmaps-are-seen-as-rgb-lose-transparency-an

chrisg11235813

Participating Frequently

How are you creating your Bitmap file?

Are you using Image>Mode>Bitmap or just saving straight to BMP ?

Kurt Gold

Community Expert

Seems to work fine for me in Illustrator 26.4.1

S

SJRiegel

Community Expert

It is working fine for me in 26.4.1

I checked with jpg files in bitmap mode and grayscale.

I also tried one in BMP format -- still worked fine.

Check the color space of your placed file to make sure it is actually in bitmap or grayscale, and not an RGB or CMYK file that just appears to be a bitmap.

K

KuttyjoeAuthor

Inspiring

bmp is the problem for me. Grayscale will take a spot color with no problem. I can import a bitmap or just draw a circle and convert to bmp and it won't take the sopt color. Hmmm. But its working for you so there must be something on my end.

K

KuttyjoeAuthorCorrect answer

Inspiring

OK I see the problem now. When converting to bitmap, it has to be "transparent" in the settings. White background won't work. Maybe I just forgot these details but something else seems new to me. Maybe I was wrong again, but I thought that if I did a "select all", copied a bitmap (bitmap mode) from Photoshop and pasted it into Illustrator, it would have the white background. But now, I see that it doesn't. When I paste it into Illustrator the background is transparent. Maybe I didn't notice that all these years. Anyway, thanks for the help everybody. I'll have to be careful. I assigned a black color to a black and white bmp in Illustrator, thinking that it was fine but it wasn't. When you select the image, the color palette selects the spot color so it really look like the color is assigned properly. When I do preflight, that image is not assigned with the spot color.

chrisg11235813

Participating Frequently

What file type is your bitmap image?

I think you can just save it as a greyscale image -- TIF format works for me

chrisg11235813

Participating Frequently

* the option to adjust the fill colour is in the Appearance pallet

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