Error x Ink coverage over 300%

[Greg Sweetnam]

I'm finalising a book cover in Adobe InDesign CC 2015. It has three tiff files and also my first-ever vector graphic, produced in Adobe Illustrator CC 2015.

I have produced a press pdf prior to sending to my client. The preflight has highlighted an error:

Error X: Ink coverage over 300% (21 matches).

I double-click on this to take me to the error.

All of the 21 matches are details in my Adobe Illustrator vector graphic.

What can I do to re-set my ink coverage to rectify my error?

[Monika Gause]

This can't be solved by using the crystal ball. Could you please post a screenshot of your graphic?

In case it's in RGB color mode then probably the black is causing this.

You will then have to convert to CMYK color mode and correct the black to 100K

[hammer0909 · Accepted solution]

Hi Greg,

This error sounds like a Preflight error you are receiving in Adobe Acrobat. What this is telling you is that your artwork contains objects that have more than 300% ink coverage. This is an issue if you're having the product printed on a printing press because it can cause the ink to offset to adjacent sheets when the job is being printed. It seems that Acrobat's preflight is telling you which objects are the offending objects. What you can do is open the InDesign file and choose Window > Output > Separations Preview. In the Separations Preview panel, choose Ink Limit from the view drop-down menu at the top of the panel. InDesign will highlight any objects that are above the 300% ink limit (as defined in the field directly to the right of the View drop-down menu). The solution for you is to open the highlighted artwork, and reduce the ink values to something below a total of 300%. Often times this can be caused by the Registration swatch being applied to objects but I suppose you may just have some dark artwork that has a high ink limit. I hope this helps!

[Greg Sweetnam]

Hello Chad,

I opened the Illustrator file in Photoshop. I found the Convert to Profile option, saw that it differed from the Profile set up for my InDesign file (a Working RGB destination space, rather than a Working CMYK space), and I made the necessary change for them to match. I saved the file as a tiff and relinked to my InDesign file. I created the press pdf again and the Preflight reported no problems.

The resolution of the original pdf of artwork supplied by the client was 40% of the required pixel dimensions (created for web not print, I'd say). I took it into Illustrator to create my first vector graphic (got to start sometime!). There was some improvement, but still crude — heavy on the black.

Thanks very much for your clear analysis. It's much appreciated, and I will refer to it going forward.