Total ink coverage plug-in for InDesign

[Jonas27502917btdr]

Hi! New upcoming EU legislations require that all packaging materials made of plastic only has an overall print coverage of a maximum of 60%. Does anyone know if there is a useful plugin for InDesign (or Acrobat) that can measure the overall color/print coverage of a packaging design? Also if it within that potential solution would be possible to exclude colors when measuring, e.g. to exclude transparent (greyed out areas) or white (paper/plastic)? Thanks.

[Eugene Tyson]

InDesign has an Ink Limit view

Go to Window>Output>Separations Preview

Change the view to Ink Limit and insert your percentage.

I'm not aware of any plugin, sorry

https://creativepro.com/force-color-images-cmyk-240-ink-limit/

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Don't think ink limit have anything to do with coverage area?? 

[Eugene Tyson]

Good point.

Could be a difference between TIC and TAC... need to the OP to clarify.

Total ink coverage is the total amount of ink or toner that is applied to a page. This is usually expressed as a percentage of the page area that is covered by ink or toner. For example, a page with black text and a few small images might have a total ink coverage of 10%.

Total area coverage, on the other hand, refers to the percentage of the page area that is covered by any color, including white space. For example, a page with a black and white photo that covers half the page might have a total area coverage of 50%, even if the black ink coverage is only 30%.

Good article here

https://www.prepressure.com/design/basics/tic

[Jonas27502917btdr]

Thanks, Eugene. The fact is that I have found a solution within a collaborative proofing software that can calculate the percentages. However I'm not keen on spending a large monthly fee for just this tiny feature and the process of preparing the PDFs for calculation is somehow time consuming when you have to exclude die cutter and other colors that should be ignored when calculating. In this feature it is only possible to exclude white or cool gray. See examples of output below.
It would be much nicer if this could be done using either InDesign or Acrobat where layers could be switched on/off.

[Jonas27502917btdr]

Hi Eugune. I'm afraid it is not the ink coverage that I want to know. It is merely a total area coverage. If you have an artboard that measures 100x100 mm and you place a black box measuring 50x100 mm the total area coverage would be 50%. That calculation is farely easy. However take the same artboard and and small images, logos, and texts and then doing the same calculation isn't that easy.

[Eugene Tyson]

I get you now - sorry for the confusion. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Should be doable... either directly in the InDesign or by using Photoshop to rasterize PDFs and checking black areas... 

[Jonas27502917btdr]

Hi Robert. Thanks for your reply. How would you do this directly in InDesign? Please also read my reply to Eugene above. Would your recommendation still be to rasterizing the PDFs and checking black areas?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I got your problem from the start 😉 

If the objects would be a "simple" elements - like fully filled geometric objects - easy. 

If we go for cutouts - then we somehow need to calculate what is really covered with ink - in this case the easiest way would be to rasterize PDFs in the Photoshop and "count pixels" 😉 

Of course if you can make some assumptions - text on a white background is 10% of the area - then we could do it directly in the InDesign. 

[Eugene Tyson]

I believe this is similar to your issue
https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/can-acrobat-tell-me-the-ink-coverage-of-a-pdf/td-...

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

I think it's still just how many cans of ink you will use - rather than area? 

[Pickory]

If a snap shot of the page was created as a png it might be possible to count the dots.

Edited.... Hmm, I like this idea. I going to write it. Not sure if it really fits the OP question.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

From a quick Google search - there are tools to count pixels in the image 😉 

But maybe Photoshop's Histogram can be used as a counter??

[Pickory]

Counting the pixels.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

This is pretty easy 😉 

What if you have cutouts? Objects with clipping path? Or even PDFs with transparency? 

[Pickory]

The fancy stuff should work. The bleed can be in / ex cluded. Now I need to go find the EU regs.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

What bleed? 

[Pickory]

Sorry, margins.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Still - what margins ?

[Pickory]

Hmmm, the margin is anyting over the pink lines. Currenly I am using this as a clipping path.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Margin is not a line that limits printing area - page's edge is. 

And looking at your example - are you able to calculate area of this text?

[Pickory]

Yes, the A and Y would be clipped.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

But can you get the area of the shape like this?? 

[Pickory]

Yes.