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Hi everyone, wondering if anyone can help with the very odd, dangerous and disturbing issue.
We at work had a job we ran last month (july 27th). 4 colour with a pantone in the supplied PDF which we converted within indesign to process using ink manager/output options. Pantone was green 342 uncoated.
We then had to do a re-print with a new supplied PDF from the customer. This new PDF was only for the outside cover of the job, no changes or any new artwork for the rest of the job.
My colleague who dealt with this originally is on holiday, so when the new revised artwork for the cover arrived, I opened up the previous job on my computer. I re-linked the new artwork and ran the new job to our CTP Rip.
Once one the press, the press operator tells me that the green that is common throughtout the job (the converted pantone 342 uncoated) is coming out different to how it look when we previously ran the job.
This is strange because the green is only used on the text sections and the inside cover, which havent been updated its only the outside cover section that has been revised and resupplied. Upon looking at the indesign document I used to output the revised job I notice a very strange thing. The converted green on the document for the cover section (the cover is work and turn with old previous/standing/unrevised pdf including) has now got a different CMYK Breakdown/Conversion in seperations preview to the rest of the text sections that are in a seperate indesign document.
The linked PDF is the same PDF in both indesign documents, but the pantone conversion is different between the documents. Ive checked our document CMYK colour settings and the all the relevant output settings to see if they are the same between both documents and everything looks the same. Ive checked the issue on other computers in our studio, including my colleague who is on holiday, I checked on this too and I get the same issue.
Now for the really strange part... If I grab hold of the picture box contaning the rogue coloured green page and copy and paste that picture box into the other indesign document contaning the text pages .... every part of the job contaning this converted PMS 342 changes before my eyes to the incorrect colour, when i removed the imported picture box or apple-Z what ive done the colour reverts back to what it was previously!! If I flip what ive done and copy and paste the correct picture box containing the correct previous green into the new cover section indesign document, it flips the other way and the new conversion flips back to the old conversion.
Also in the indesign document with the new re-supplied outside cover the pantone green 342 is converting to the correct CMYK for pantone 342 uncoated (C=100, M=30, Y=80, K=19) and the previous artwork in the old text sections indesign document was actually converting incorrectly (C=76, M=35, Y=60, K=24).
When i copy and paste the old previous text section from the new cover indesign document into the held previous text sections indesign document, the previous incorrect converted Pantone 342 changes from the previous incorrect breakdown to the new correct breakdown, all immidiately infront of my eyes both visually and on seperations preview. This is the same unedited PDF with no revisions changing colour just by copying and pasting the picture box between two different indesign documents.
Even in the links panel it is showing that the link is the same and has the same placed and modified dates. but the colours change when moving the picture box with the same linked pdf between indesign documents. And the other picture boxes that are within those documents, the green in those boxes changes to the one im moving betweem documents.
Any idea what could be causing these issues? Both the actual incorrect conversion of pantone 342U and more alarmingly the way the colour changes between documents using the same linked pdf and without actually changing anything within that PDF?
I do know that there have been some updates regarding pantone libraries with indesign this month, with adobe and pantone going their seperate ways and adobe removing various pantone swatch libraries since the amends by the customer were made. Im wondering if these updates to the way indesign handles PMS colours is causing these strange issues?
Any insight would be extremely helpful.
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Hi @AspieBoy , can you share the PDF?
In your captures I don’t see the Pantone 342 spot color listed in your Separation Preview, so it must be a process color in the PDF. If the process version of the color has a color profile embedded (its not DeviceCMYK), then depending on the destination document’s saved CMYK Policy and assigned CMYK profile, you might get a color conversion when you place the PDF. If the color is listed as ICCBasedCMYK in the PDF then its values can change when it is placed in a document with a conflicting CMYK profile assignment.
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