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Is there a way to place the spot color only from a 5 channel .psd file into InDesign? Normally I would just place a grayscale tiff and color it in InDesign.
I do not want anything but the spot channel to appear in the exported PDF.
with the 4C content appearing as white
You should be able to do that.
Here's a CMYK + Spot Channel .PSD with the CMYK channels filled with white
Showing the spot channel:
Placed in ID:
Hiding the Spot channel shows the CMYK channels are white:
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PDFs with spot colors always include the CMYK plates along with the spot colors. The best you can do is set up an InDesign preflight rule that flags any use of the CMYK plates. The only case where you don't get CMYK plates in the exported PDF is with an export to a gray profile (which produces a single black plate PDF), but that would also convert the spot colors to grayscale.
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OK, so there is no way to place a 5C .psd into InDesign as a spot color only. Saving it as a grayscale and coloring in InDesign is the only option?
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No, you can place a .psd with a spot channel and the spot channel should show as a spot color in Separation Preview. The color mode of the .psd can be anything, i.e., you can have an empty grayscale with the spot channel.
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I must be missing something. I can place the 5C .psd, but cannot turn off the 4C.
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That's right, you can't delete the CMYK channels. The Separation Preview always has the CMYK plates plus whatever spot color swatches you create. You can use preflight to confirm that the CMYK or CMY plates are empty. At output your printer can turn off the CMYK plates from either the ID or Acrobat print dialog.
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Thanks for confirming. This is going to a digital printer printing a spot color only for the image and 4C for other areas.
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So you should be able to place the 5-color psd and use Separation Preview to confirm the contents of the spot and CMYK plates via the panel's eyeball icons
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Yes, The 5C content appears in InDesign, but I need the spot color only, (with the 4C content appearing as white), which I can only achieve using a grayscale tiff colored in InDesign. I could delete the 4C content in Photoshop, but would prefer to use one file for both the 4C and 1C content, which appears to be not possible.
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with the 4C content appearing as white
You should be able to do that.
Here's a CMYK + Spot Channel .PSD with the CMYK channels filled with white
Showing the spot channel:
Placed in ID:
Hiding the Spot channel shows the CMYK channels are white:
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I appreciate your efforts to clarify, and realize I'm not being very clear. I was hoping to use a single .psd file that would appear as a normal 4C image and also as a 1C spot color on the same InDesign page (in different places), similar to using object layer options with .ai or .pdf
Thanks.
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Im getting this error color space issue in Indesign trying to place a PSD with spot channels. Doesnt make sense to me? I cant print using separation neither from photoshop. I tried saving image out as a PDF from photoshop, but i only get 5 save file formats in save as?! This is really weird?
Using photoshop 22.5 on windows
EDIT
Well not sure what went wrong. I can use save copy and then PDF does show. But i think save as should also show these options. Still had the same color space issue when i saved the file as TIF. That kinda useless since it renames the spot channels to something else. Kinda weird we need to save separate channels like this old skool thing. Why isnt this possible to to in 2021?!
EDIT 2
Well Indsign seems to have big issues with PDF with spot channles. Weird, on OSX this works fine. I now saved it out as PSD PDF and now get a bleed box error in Indesign.
Edit took a bit of time. But glad i kept researching it. The issue was having spot channels with the same name as one of the default channel names. This issue is in both RGB and CMYK files. As soon as you names it different the file is red properly. Though i find it weird it tells its a color space issue, while its a color spot channel issue!
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From my testing, it appears that the spot colors need to be legitimate colors in Photoshop and InDesign libraries Not discussing the channel name, but the selected spot color.
For example, my old example files use the original Pantone colors and would not work in InDesign. I changed the colors to Pantone+ and they worked fine.
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Hi @Creamer Training , IIf you wanted to use a legacy CMYK defined Pantone Color, add the legacy swatch in InDesign before placing the PSD with the same named spot:
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Thanks, Rob--I understand that. I was just pointing out the files will not work without the libraries installed. Since so few people are using the old libraries, I just mentioned the workaround for the installed libraries.
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I got it working after some more "investigating", as soon as you have duplicate names like black, red, magenta etc. Then it will return this errors. As long as the names are unique it works. It also still works when using rgb or cmyk values, they didnt specifically need to be PMS colors.
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Hi @schroef , You can’t name Spot Channels Black, Cyan, Magenta, or Yellow. In your capture the Black Spot Channel is causing the unsupported color message.
Also, use of Red, Green, or Blue would cause this messsage:
If you give the spot color a custom name and don’t use a book value (e.g., a Pantone Solid Ink) it will display as gray unless you create the spot color with the same name in InDesign first:
Here I’ve created MyGreen in InDesign before placing the PSD:
You don’t have to save as PDF, PSD with legal Spot Channel names should work.
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Yes, i had figured that part a bit later as well. Yet i didnt get that error you show, yours shows exactly what the issue was. Kinda weird my Indesign showed a different error.
After some more fiddling i noticed the issue was having not unique names and we cant use default channel names neither
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I did get colors though, there is an option to show spot channels as colors vs greys.
Here's the spot channel setup in photoshop
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You could still use the Black CMYK channel. I don’t think you gain anything by Saving As Photoshop PDF, here I’m placing a PSD image file:
Also I’m not sure if it matters but in your InDesign capture where you are sampling the red, the Magenta and Yellow separations are being used—100% Red + 95% Magenta + 100% Yellow
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That about still magenta being doesnt matter. This was just a test file where i tried getting plates.
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EDIT 2...The issue was having spot channels with the same name as one of the default channel names....Though i find it weird it tells its a color space issue, while its a color spot channel issue!
Sorry, I missed your Edit 2—I see you figured out the naming conflict.
It might be worth noting that the Color Space of a spot color is defined as Separation, ColorName and not CMYK, RGB, or Lab. The Black name is reserved for the CMYK space, and a spot color is always a solid ink separation and would never have a Black or CMY ink component. Acrobat’s Object Inspector:
now get a bleed box error in Indesign
Photoshop documents don’t have a bleed option, so when you save a Photoshop PDF there is no way to include a Bleed Box the way there is from InDesign. If you check Show Import Options when you Place a Photoshop PDF, the Bleed Crop To: Option will be grayed out (the Crop To: option is sticky so that’s probably why you are getting the error message):
Photoshop
InDesign
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Well i guess i didnt see that bleed option greyed out, as i was relinking it to an already placed PSD file. If i had placed it as a new linked file, then i would have seen that
Thanks for posting it out and showing it like this!
EDIT
I tried it again using the same file, but now placed as a new linked file. Then it does work.
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I haven't played with spot color channels in ages--brings back memories!
Try a multi-channel file in Photoshop.
InDesign will not import a multi-channel PSD file. You get the following error:
Going back to my QuarkXPress days, I saved the file in the DCS 2.0 format.
I was able to place it in InDesign, but the preview did not show up until I turned on Separations (Overprint Preview)
I then printed to the Adobe PDF driver to test the separations:
The PDF (separation) only contained the spot color channels:
BTW, I tried a grayscale with spot color channels and separated it. Got a blank black plate, but most printers can disable output on that plate.
Ask where the old way is, where the good way is, and walk on it.