Spot colors from Photoshop to Indesign / Pantone Connect quagmire

[DebbieBerne]

I am a Pantone Connect subscriber and, well, we all understand that it is exponentially worse than the previous workflow. But it's what we have and I am trying to use it. Here's my current issue:

I am working with monotone, spot color art in Photoshop. I use LAB values to get close to a Pantone color, I name it a Pantone number and save it. When I bring it into InDesign I get an error message that says:

The spot ink "PANTONE 7684 U" cannot be represented correctly within InDesign. The ink will color separate corectly, but will appear gray on screen and in composite output. Do you want to import the image anyway?

That's all fine and good, but I actually need to see the illustration in the (approximate) color to work on my design, to show it to clients, etc.

Has anyone run into this issue and found a workaround/solution?

Any help much appreciated.

Debbie

[Peter Spier · Accepted solution]

What happens if you go to Ink Manager and conver the spot to process? Does it render? If it does you can do that to work on the file and show tyhe clienbt, then un-convert for output.

[DebbieBerne]

that worked! totally annoying, but workable! thanks so much. 

Does anyone know if there is a training or somewhere to learn to use Pantone Connect more efficiently with Adobe stuff? I would pay good money to get more or a grip on the new processes.

[Peter Spier]

I'm really glad that worked for you. I just tried placing some old spot color Illustrator logos and got nothing, even with converting spots to process. Might be because you built the colors yiourself and my logos were built using the old swatch books.

[DebbieBerne]

See my note in the thread below -- if I use a spot channel it doesn't work, but if I use the monotone channel it does. What a whack system.

I am sure the printer will be ok (it's a 2-color/PMS book so will be clear) but it makes the designing phase so convoluted.

[rob day]

Hi @DebbieBerne , How is your Photoshop Spot color setup? Is it a Monotone or a Spot Channel? Are you saving the file as a .PSD?

Can you show screen captures of your setup as I’m showing below or share the file?

Monotone:

Spot Channel:

[DebbieBerne]

yes, my setup basically looks like yours. See screenshot attached. Any thoughts?

[DebbieBerne]

p.s. HOWEVER if I add the PMS as a spot channel, when I bring it into ID, I get a blank box. If I don't add it as a spot channel (just keep the monotone channel), it appears as it should.

???

[rob day]

Does it work if you make a new document, add the PANTONE 7684U swatch to InDesign from Pantone Connect, then place the PSD with the Spot channel? If not can you share the file?

Also, the Pantone .acb libraries don’t get installed with CC2023, but you should be able to manually install them and use the Swatches panel rather than Pantone Connect. See this thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/pantone-alert-in-indesign/td-p/13565184

[DebbieBerne]

I tried that experiment and it did not work. I am attaching my ID file and the illustration. Would love any insight you discover.

I will definitely manually install the libraries. Pantone Connect is useless!

[DebbieBerne]

p.s. I have installed the .acb files and . . . ahhhhhh . . . back to the old, workable workflow. The spot channel thing is still not working between PS and ID (and I'd love to know if you can figure out why) but choosing a monotone color IS working. 

I am starting to think the reason no one is doing more teaching about how to use pantone connect is because no one else is using it, they're just downloading the old libraries. I am going to join them and cancel my subscription.

[rob day]

I’m not using CC2023, but do the attached files place correctly in a new file?

[DebbieBerne]

yes! what did you do to make it work?

[DebbieBerne]

maybe I see . . . it's in grayscale not monotone. is that it?

[rob day]

Also, I’m not sure you need to set the Spot color in Photoshop, a flattened Grayscale image can have a spot color applied in InDesign.

See the attached .idml file.

[DebbieBerne]

yes, I've applied spot colors in InDesign before, but usually when working with TIFFs. These files need to be PSDs because they are transparent (sitting on top of another color). I heard that TIFFs now can have transparency but haven't explored that.

Thank you so much for your attention and help!

[rob day]

If you need transparency use a Grayscale with a Spot Channel and the Gray Channel empty and transparent.

A transparent Grayscale:

Add a new blank Spot Channel with the needed Pantone Color set as the Ink:

Select the Spot Channel in the Channels panel and paste the artwork into that channel—leave the Gray Channel empty but visible:

See attached

[rob day]

A Monotone with a transparent background would also work, but choose either Monotone or Spot Channel—don‘t use both.

[DebbieBerne]

yes, got it. my monotone is transparent as well. But if I had, say, two spot colors (in this kind of line art) then I would want to use channels instead. Much appreciated!

[rob day]

One other option for transparency would be a Bitmap (Black and White) mode. A Bitmap’s white pixels are effectively transparent in InDesign, and would work when the art has no gray values. Here the container frame is set to [None] and the art is set to White: