Import ai with spot colors

[Nicolas Wall]

Hi all, need help converting an ai file to psd.

I have an illustrator file with 5 spot colors. I want to import it to photoshop and make spot channels from those spotcolors. Is there an easy way or do I have to do it manually transforming the spot color to a CMYK and then changing the channel on photoshop.

thanks

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I would expect there are several possibilities … 

• print a separated ps or pdf, convert and combine the separated pages

• Create New Smart Object as Copy for each spot color, open the SOs and change all colors except one to white and one to black for each of the SOs 

• …

Is the task a frequent one for you? 

[Nicolas Wall]

I work processing the prepress files for dry offset printer. All our jobs are spot colors and sometimes we need to make bitmaps of the files that have gradients. 

What we usually do is transform the spot colors to CMYK and open the ai file on photoshop, then copy each CMYK channel to a new spot channel. If we have more than 4 colors, we repeat the procces. 

I was looking for something simpler, more automatic. 

[c.pfaffenbichler]

The Smart Object approach could, in theory, be automated with a Script. 

Cross-program Scripting with BridgTalk is not exactly my cup of tea, though, so it might not be very comfortable to Script. 

If the task is quite frequent it might be worth checking out that avenue. 

[Bob_Hallam]

Photoshop can not do what you're asking.  I recommend that you use InDesign to assemble the files and export them to PDF with the correct spot color channels.