Export HQ-pdf with specific ICC profile

[Majken5EoF]

Hi!
The whole thing with color profiles is killing me slowly.
I am to send a HighQuality PDF to the printing house and they said that I should use PSO Uncoated V3 FOGRA52. I have installed the icc-profile on my PC. Then what to do? The only way I've found to change the color profile in AI is to go to Edit/Assign Profile where it says "working CMYK: Coated FOGRA39" ... and "Profile" where I chose PSO uncoated v3 FOGRA52 in the dropdown and clicked OK. 
When I save it as a HQ-PDF and open it in other softwares it doesn't appear to be the correct color profile. And not if I open the PDF in AI either. I do not have Acrobat Pro or any other adobe subscriptions to check the file in. I've played around with PDF settings in OUTPUT  - COLOR but I can't get it to work and when opening in AI I get an error: "The document contains PDF objects that have been reinterpreted: An unknown imaging construct was encountered."

Please help me! What am I supposed to do to export a PDF with the printing house ICC-profile correctly?

[Anubhav Majumder]

Hello @Majken5EoF,

Sorry to hear about this experience. I would request you to try the following steps and check if it helps:

• Use the Save As option to save it as a PDF.
• From the Output menu, change the Color Conversion value to Convert to Destination and select your color profile in the Destination Menu.

Kindly update this thread if you need further assistance. We'd be happy to help.

Thanks,

Anubhav

[Majken5EoF]

Hi @Anubhav Majumder !

Thank you for your reply! I followed the steps you suggested but still got the error: "The document contains PDF objects that have been reinterpreted: An unknown imaging construct was encountered." when opening the PDF in AI. When opened pdf in AI, if I check Edit - Color Settings, it says that Working CMYK is "Coated FOGRA..." instead of the profile I chose "PSO uncoated..."  in the pdf output color settings.

[Met1]

"The document contains PDF objects that have been reinterpreted: An unknown imaging construct was encountered" probably has nothing to do with the color profile. Did you work on this file outside of Illustrator? Did you save the file as a pdf without Preserving Illy Editing Capabilities? Was any part of this file brought in from a non-Illy app - Corel Draw for instance? Did you export from InDesign and import to Illy (Illy only works in either CMYK or RGB, Corel Draw and ID can have both, so if you drew something that has both Illy has a problem interpreting it sometimes...)

[Monika Gause]

Which "other softwares" did you use?

Most PDF readers just don't interpret PDF correctly. Acrobat Pro is reliable.

When you place this PDF in InDesign, then InDesign should tell you which color profile is embedded.

Which export options exactly did you use?

How is your color management set up? When reopening the PDF in Illustrator then badly set up color management could delete a color profile or replace it. So color management needs to be set up as well.

You need to of course embed the profile in your PDF.

PDFs for professional printing typically are PDF/X (the service provider should tell you which version 1, 3 or 4)

And then you should always first save your work file as an AI file.

The file for the service provider should be an extra file. When you need to edit, use the AI file for that.

[Majken5EoF]

I sadly do not subscribe to any other adobe applications so I can not check it in Acrobat Pro or InDesign. I opened it in Krita.
I would not be chocked if my color management is badly set up. It is so complex to grasp. I've googled this so much and I still don't understand it. Do you have an easy-to-understand-way to set up the color management in AI?

Everything in the file is created in AI. 

Export options I used: 
1. Edit - Assign profile - Profile = the one I got from printing house - OK (working cmyk is the wrong profile)
2. Save a Copy - High Quality Print - OUTPUT - Convert to Destination - Destination = new profile/ Include destination Profiles - Save PDF
I do get a SUMMARY Warning: The preset specifies source profiles that don’t match the current color settings. Profiles specified by the color settings file will be used.

I thought HQ pdf was the bullet proof way to create files for printing house.
I always have an original ai-file and "save as copy"-pdf to send.

Oh and I had "Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" unchecked when saved and when I checked it the error when reopening file dissappeared so that's one tick in the box. Thank you! BUT the color profile issues are unresolved still.

[Monika Gause]

I opened it in Krita.

By @Majken5EoF

You need Acrobat if you want to check your PDFs for printing.

There are courses available about color managmeent on LinkedIn Learning (not for free, but LinkedIn Learning is available in a lot of public libraries).

Just in case you understand German, you can find a good introduction in the download section of Cleverprinting.de for free.

For printing you usually export a PDF/X 1, 3 or 4 (depending on the service provider's specifications)