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Help preparing document with Spot Colors for printing on Heidelberg Versafire

Explorer ,
Feb 11, 2022 Feb 11, 2022

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Hello, for an important job, I'm working with a printing company to print special spot colors in gold and silver on a Heidelberg Versafire.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to fix an issue now for days with setting up the document for printing.

For some reason, all spot colors I set up, show what I believe to be correctly in the Separations & Output Previews.

Itami_1-1644614136280.png

However, the printing company says that for them, they show up black and cant be printed. I do not know what they mean by that or how it looks for them. I first suspected them to need the spot channels on separate layers within the file, but the example file they sent me (which works for them), does just like my file have all channels within the same image.

 

If anyone has experience with this, or knows where I can find proper resources or example files, it would help me out so much, as I literally don't know what else to do and kinda need to get this done.

 

Thanks for your time and help!

TOPICS
Bug , How to , Import and export , Print

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Explorer ,
Feb 13, 2022 Feb 13, 2022

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I did actually create the image file in photoshop using spot colors.

Itami_2-1644787429091.png

I tried creating the PDF in InDesign and Illustrator, both with the same result.
I did also not knowingly set any special blend mode for anything in any of my tests.

Both spot channels in Photoshop are grayscale images, set up to display black as the ink. Is that not the correct setup?

This is what shows up in my InDesign:

Itami_1-1644787261126.png

 

 

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Explorer ,
Feb 13, 2022 Feb 13, 2022

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"The spot layer objects should be set to Fill > Overprint."

I'm not too familiar with this setting. In InDesign, I believe the default is set to not overprint.

For the image file in InDesign, I seem to be able to check the Overprint Fill box (which I didn't do before).

Itami_0-1644788858324.png

However, I believe this will apply to all colors then, not just spot colors. Did you mean that, or do you want me to apply this only to spot colors? If so, how is that done?

 

I asked Heidelberg for the specific preparation instructions, but did not get a response. The printing company does not have them or know where to find them either.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 13, 2022 Feb 13, 2022

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Can you package and share the InDesign file you exported?

 

Looks like your Photoshop file was saved as Large Format (.psb), which you would not need for a file this small. When I export my example PSD placed in InDesign to default PDF/X-4 there is no transparency, so it seems like there must be something set to Multiply somewhere in your ID file—you should be able to find it with the Flattener Preview panel.

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Explorer ,
Feb 13, 2022 Feb 13, 2022

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I use PSB for all my work files, as they are usually larger than 2gb.

You are right, the transparency flattened does show transparency on the file entire file for whatever reason. However, I can't figure out where it comes from.

So I created you a file with the PSD as well IND files and my latest PDF export: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bLj_vyzjd6RnVEqQtlLw7-7NnJADkTlC/view?usp=sharing

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Explorer ,
Feb 13, 2022 Feb 13, 2022

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I believe I might have found the issue. In a resource I found, it said that the colors have to be set to NOT overprint.

When I uncheck, Simulate Overprinting, my document loses the gold and silver spot colors. 

However, when I uncheck it with the working provided PDF the gold and silver stays present.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how this is achieved.

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Explorer ,
Feb 13, 2022 Feb 13, 2022

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When saving as PDF X-3 2003, the spot colors seem to start overprinting, which the original working example PDF does not seem to do. Which also makes the file show up as "Page Has Overprint: Yes"

When saving as PDF X-4 this effect does no longer occur. And the page shows up as "Page Has Overprint: No"

Also, when using CMYK as color profile for the Photoshop file, the identifier changes to FOGRA27 and the Output Preview show behavior becomes the same as the working example. I do have hope this may work, So I will file this version and cross my fingers while I pray.

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