ICC Profile Error causing blue glitch blocks to appear in print.

[Lilly Shallenberger]

Hello,

I am a young graphic designer who has been working on my company's catalog for the past couple months. I was working on an older computer and a much older version of InDesign (I believe it was downloaded in 2011) and was upgraded to a new computer with the updated versions of Adobe programs. Things worked fine for a while with transferring everything over, but just recently I have started having issues with my catalog document. When exporting to PDF, I get the error message "Version 4 ICC Profiles were converted to version 2 ICC during PDF export". I managed to isolate those errors to two pages by exporting each page one at a time, and I deleted elements on those pages until the error messages no longer showed. The issue with the blue glitch boxes  persist though, whether I print from Indesign, or export it as a pdf and print from acrobat. The PDF shows no errors when being viewed digitally. I tried following the suggestions in This help thread  but the issue persisted. Printing the pages individually works just fine, but this is a catalog I have to print several copies of at a time so I need to resolve why printing it in full is causing errors.

I've also attempted some long shot solutions I could think of, including

• sizing down every image in the 95 page document to be as small as possible

• removing all Indesign effects, such as drop-shadows

•  

If you have any suggestions on how to fix this issue please send them my way, I desperately need to get this fixed and I have tried everything.

[rob day]

Can you share the problem PDF?

[Lilly Shallenberger]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xfTB7iJfnwHlNO60_OSYaxSQUi9sc45Q/view?usp=sharing

This is the problem pdf. I no longer get the error message while exporting it, and it looks normal when viewing it, all the errors occur through print. I went through and fixed every large pdf with clipping masks left by the previous designer, so the only things left I believe could be casuing this issue are pngs saved in RGB somehow messing up the color profiles, or something with te graphic elements like drop shadows and shapes. The glitch boxes spread throughout the entire document, it seems entirely random.

[rob day]

Google isn’t letting me get the file—can you set the sharing permissions so anyone can download. Or you can share it via your CC account. Move it to your Creative Cloud Files folder and login in to your cloud account to get the link.

It sounds like a problem with your print driver. Does it happen if you print from Acrobat with Advanced>Print as Image checked?

[Randy Hagan]

Hi Lilly.

How are you producing the catalogs? I take it from your post that you're using an on-demand printing solution, but the previous thread you linked to and this one didn't discuss exactly how you're producing the catalog. So I've got some questions:

1. What output device(s) are you using to produce your short runs of the catalog? How are you assembling these product sheets into your book?
2. Are you running the device in-house? Or are you using a vendor to output from your files?
3. Do you have another on-demand printer handy, in-house or out of house, to test your files on a different device so you can troubleshoot the issue?

Looking at your pictures in Imgur, not all the knocked-out gloves have the same issue. Some have no (please excuse the expression) ink scum around the gloves, others do and some of them have some of that blue scum in the image as well. Looking at the shots, I think you may have a mecha nical reproduction issue with the job rather than necessarily an ICC issue.

Not knowing who's providing your product art, it also looks like a couple of the product shots have rough edges like the background has been "erased" to transparent rather than cut off cleanly with clipping paths. It might be worth taking a closer look at all the product art in Photoshop and see what could be done with that too.

Maybe if we knew more about how you were producing your catalog/product pages, we can help you zero in on your issues.

Randy

[Lilly Shallenberger]

Hello all, 

I appreciate all your help. This catalog has been a project worked on by many designers throughout the years, and as I went through the links I found a lot of sloppy pdfs with preserved clipping masks, huge image files, lots of things that could cause issues. I decided to recreate the document fully to assure that everything is saved and linked correctly, however I tried one last thing on a whim that solve the issue and caused the catalog to print just fine. I went into Edit > Color settings> and set the RGB to conver to working space instead of prevent embedded profiles. This solved the issue for now, but I will still be recreating the document with better practices in the near future. 

Thanks!

- Lilly

[rob day]

I went into Edit > Color settings> and set the RGB to conver to working space instead of prevent embedded profiles.

That seems like a coincidence—the Color Settings’ Policies only affect future documents you make—changing the policy would have no affect on an existing document. For new documents, the RGB Policy would only affect native colors and swatches, and not link images.

[Lilly Shallenberger]

You seem to be right. After printing just fine yesterday it is back to printing with the blue errors everywhere again. I guess my only hope it to carefully go through each image and assure they're processed correctly. I just don't understand why this issue just started occuring. If there is a way for me to share the file here I can but I'm not sure how to upload it to this thread?

[rob day]

I was never able to get your GoogleDrive sample—it’s not allowing everyone to download.

[Lilly Shallenberger]

Is there an email I could perhaps send it to? The google download is set with open permissions so I am not sure why that method isn't working.

[rob day]

Put the package in your Creative Cloud Files folder, which is installed in your computer‘s user folder an it will sync to your cloud account where you can get a link to post:

Click Creative Cloud Web in your CC app

From Your Work navigate to the sync’d folder and get its link:

[rob day]

or zipperzulu at gmail.com