Is there a way to add a new CMYK swatch through the separations preview?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
October 25, 2018
3 replies
2045 views

I'm trying to find a way to add a new colour to swatches based on colour values as you hover over a page in the separations preview.

I work at a printers and we're constantly having to tweak artwork we get from customers. This involves a lot of memorising colour values in the CMYK separations preview, then adding those values in the swatches panel as a new swatch each time.

It would be a big help if I could skip that step as I have to do this all day long. If you were on separations preview, for example, if there was another tool akin to the eyedropper (which currently only works with RGB raster images ) that would be super helpful if it could do CMYK and vectors.

I've Googled it and had a quick look on this forum but didn't see a quick method for doing this.

separations preview

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L

Laubender

Community Expert

Hi MTPmedia ,

why do you think, that the Eyedropper Tool is not able to pick up CMYK colors?

With placed CMYK pixel based images this is possible. Just tested this successfully with a placed CMYK image.

What the Eyedropper Tool cannot do is working as substitution for the cursor you are seeing when Separation Preview is turned on.

And I see no way that this can be scripted. It would require to read out the numbers from the Separation Preview panel at every given time.

Regards,
Uwe

M

MTPmediaAuthor

Inspiring

I think it doesn't work because I just tried it and it doesn't work.

It either does nothing or gives me an error message that says "Image is a vector graphic. Eyedropper values based on low resolution RGB proxy." My use case is more often than not doing this on imported PDFs, which may be why it doesn't work, but any vector created in InDesign would already be in swatches anyway barring rare occasions if I'm sent an actual InDesign file and the swatches don't carry across for some reason, which does happen occasionally. But yes, what you're describing is what I would like for it to do, pick up the values shown on the separation preview. Sad to hear that can't be done, it would be incredibly useful.

rob day

Community Expert

Hi,

Thank you for taking the time to do that for me.

It is sort of what I'd like to do but it's no faster than using the separations preview, and it only works with images that have already been converted to CMYK, which almost none of the images we receive from customers have been, so while I can see it being helpful in some instances, it doesn't do what I'd need in almost all cases.

Thank you anyway, I'm going to assume that what I had originally asked can't be done since nobody seems to be aware of it.

My use case is more often than not doing this on imported PDFs, which may be why it doesn't work, but any vector created in InDesign would already be in swatches anyway barring rare occasions if I'm sent an actual InDesign file and the swatches don't carry across for some reason,

In case it's not clear the reason you can't sample an actual color from a placed PDF or ID file is the file itself could have objects with different color spaces, while the placed object's preview is a single space RGB proxy.

When you place an ID file, its spot color swatches will get added to swatches, but not process colors.

As Uwe is showing, any image file can be accurately sampled, and I think his method could be simplified by using the Color panel's Add To Swatches:

it only works with images that have already been converted to CMYK, which almost none of the images we receive from customers have been, so while I can see it being helpful in some instances, it doesn't do what I'd need in almost all cases.

InDesign's Swatches panel is color managed, so in the case of RGB images the values you get by changing the color mode of the swatch or Color panel from RGB to CMYK would be the conversion from the object's source RGB space to your document's assigned CMYK space, which is what the Separation Preview panel shows. This is an RGB PSD, the Color panel shows that I've just sampled 124|126|124 RGB and the Separation Preview shows its conversion to my document's SWOP CMYK profile:

If I change the Color panel's space to CMYK, I get the same conversion to SWOP and can add the swatch to the Swatches panel:

The RGB proxy for placed PDFs is also color managed, so while it might not be quite as accurate the same method could be used.

S

SJRiegel

Legend

Does Add Unnamed Colors in the Swatches Panel menu not do what you need?

M

MTPmediaAuthor

Inspiring

I didn't know about this feature, but I just tried it and it doesn't appear to do anything. It didn't add any of the colours in the file I opened into swatches, at least, unless they go to another hidden submenu? I'm assuming this would maybe occur when you have a document that's been made in InDesign but for some reason the colours don't appear in Swatches?

Add Unnamed Colours would be a helpful ability if it allowed you to add all vector swatches used in a given document or imported PDF, though it would potentially get confusing with very long documents.