Grayscale support has been one of those long-requested additions that has to make it into the program someday The feature is available in CS6. The export to grayscale feature is welcome because you no longer have to export via distiller to get a grayscale conversion, but it's not grayscale support—there's still no grayscale color space available in ID. Converting to grayscale rather than authoring in grayscale has potential problems like this: converting to this: ... View more

For some reason, InDesign exports 1-bit images in a 4-channel CMYK format after that particular combination of settings. A 1-bit image takes on whatever color is assigned to it, so if you select the image and choose any RGB swatch  its source color will be rgb on export—the color doesn't have to be default CMYK black. Not sure why the default black swatch stays CMYK when the blend space is RGB and you change the document intent to Web. The blackness of a 0|0|0|100 CMYK object is dependent on the document's CMYK profile—US Sheetfed Uncoated shows black as gray because that's what happens on press—60|50|50|100 is blacker than 0|0|0|100. Some older profiles don't make the distinction, so if you set the assigned document CMYK profile to Photoshop Default CMYK and export to an RGB destination the default black swatch will convert to 0|0|0 RGB. ... View more

I cant't replicate your problem. Here's a 1-bit tif placed in a CMYK doc assigned with US Sheetfed Uncoated which exaggerates the gray black: Then converted to Web intent: Finally exported to Acrobat where the sRGB preview reads as 0|0|0: ... View more

On the other hand, changing Intent from File -> Document Setup does not work as described on the existing file(s). It sounds like your 1-bit images are not assigned the default black swatch [Black]. When you switch the intent to Web or Digital Publishing the default black swatch is converted to 0|0|0 RGB. A 0|0|0|100 black CMYK swatch you made would not necessarily convert to 0|0|0. If your 1-bit images are colored with a swatch other than [Black] open its swatch and change it to 0|0|0 RGB. ... View more

Rob Day is talking about some kind of press preview, whereas I am getting grey output on screen even if I try to use the PDF/X-4 preset. The OP's document is going to press—the destination is CMYK. If you are working for screen then set your document's intent as Web or Digital Publishing (File>Document Setup). In that case the  [Black] swatch, which by default is assigned to your placed 1-bit image, will be 0|0|0 black RGB and will stay that way on export to PDF. If you export to an RGB or Unchanged Color destination (PDF/X-4) the RGB black will be unchanged ... View more

It's too bad this is such a convoluted process. I don't see any problem with 1-bit black or text black with a CMYK Transparency Blend Space, either in InDesign's Separation Preview or in Acrobat's Output Preview after exporting via the PDF/X-4 preset. In all cases output reads as 0|0|0|100 CMYK, which is what you would want and expect going to  press A placed all black 1-bit psd in ID Exported to PDF/X-4 Are you outputting separations or to a composite printer? If composite  is your Print>Output>Color, Composite Gray or Composite CMYK? ... View more

File -> Export -> Output   Color Conversion -> Convert to Destination (Preserve Numbers)   Destination -> sRGB IEC61966-2.1   Profile Inclusion Policy -> Don't Include Profiles The OP's job was printing on an offset press. You've converted your PDF to all sRGB, so if it's output to separations any black objects would print as 4-color not 100% black. ... View more

So if I have to set my monitor to a setting that works close enough for this book I'm working on now, that would be fine for me. You don't have to adjust your monitor. For grayscales there is Custom Dot Gain which gives you a curve dialog that allows you to adjust the display of grayscales with out changing the output numbers (Color Setting>Gray>Custom Dot Gain...): If you adjust your monitor without creating a new monitor profile it will generally break color management in all of the Adobe apps. ... View more

I liked the days when I had a soft proof done and I calibrated my monitor to it. There's nothing stopping you from doing that now, but it would only work if you were always preparing jobs for one press. If you had three jobs, one for sheetfed coated, one for a web press, and one for news print, you'd quickly run into a mess because you'd have to change the profile of your monitor every time you worked on a file—those three press conditions will produce different color from the same values. CMYK profiles also have some subtlties that you can't acheive by adjusting your monitor. Modern profiles will show the difference between blacks with different amounts of CMY in them, or different ink sets—no amount of monitor adjusting will show those differences. Here are different blacks for uncoated. The preview shows what would happen on press with different CMY amounts. This is why ID flattens out your grayscales because black only on press is never absolute black: ... View more

When I do find out, what are the steps I need ot change the icc? In ID you choose Edit>Assign Profiles>Assign CMYK Profile and choose from the pop-up In PS you load the profile as per Peter's instructions,and then you also have to make sure the working Gray space you've loaded is assigned to the grayscale image—that's Edit>Assign Profile>choose Working Gray. ... View more

The HP Indigo profile I linked to above is closer to SWOP than Sheetfed. ... View more

I think POD is usually an HP Indigo so you could search for HP Indigo Profiles. Here's one for semi matte paper: http://www.newselfpublishing.com/HPIndigo.zip Just make sure you don't do any converting, otherwise your grayscales will get converted to 4-color. ... View more

Is there an Application Support folder in your Sytem /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/Recommended POD halftone quality is marginal, so don't expect much. You should be able to order a sample at little cost. US SWOP or US Sheetfed. ... View more

The Adobe recommended profiles should be here: System/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles But profiles can also be in: Users/user/Library/ColorSync/ System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles The CMYK Profile is set on "U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2" in the Assign Profiles dialog box. Should that be changed? What kind of press will print the project? ... View more

Do I now need to do a "Covert to Profile" to all my Grayscale images before bringing them into InDesign, or just leave them alone? Convert to Profile is not an option if you want to use a CMYK profile as the Gray space. If you use a CMYK profile as the destination when you convert to profile the mode will change to CMYK, so you definately do not want to do that. Loading a CMYK profile as the Gray working space simply previews the gray values as they would print on the black plate of the CMYK press printing to the chosen profile's spec's. Not sure where Separation Preview is in ID. Window>Output>Separations Preview ... View more

But I came across this. I went to View>Proof Setup>Custom and picked "Generic CMYK" Proof Setup shows you what will happen if you convert to the setup profile sometime in the future, so it's not helpful because you won't be converting to Generic CMYK. What system are you using and what't your ID document's CMYK profile? You can check the doc profile by choosing Edit>Assign Profiles... ... View more

Is it the same case when I view the PDF, that is the image will still keep it's output numbers from Photoshop? Yes. You can track the output numbers in all 3 apps via Info panel in PS, Separation Preview in ID and Output Preview in Acrobat. ... View more

it looks like I'm screwed as far as applying the drop shadow in InDesign. Keep in mind this is simply a preview change the output numbers are not affected—when you add transparency the document's CMYK profile is always used to display black values. The output gray values are not changing. I don't have a clue want to pick. The accuracy of your CMYK preview depends on the accuracy of the document's assigned CMYK profile and your system's moniter profile. So if your only concern is matching the preview of a grayscale in PS and ID, pick your ID document's CMYK profile (see Edit>Assign Profiles...) from your system's profile folder. ... View more

For some reason tears ago I was having problem with appiling drop shadows and other effects and it was looking screwy when it printed. Someone said to make a different setting in the "Transparency Flattener Presets" dialog box. Transparent pages always get flattened when you print, and usually you can control how the flattening happens from the Advanced tab by picking a preset. When you export a PDF transparency gets flattened when you choose PDF 1.3 from the Compatibility popup in General. So, the PDF/X-1a standard is flattened by you , while the PDF/X-4 standard postpones flattening until the PDF is printed. 99% of the time the default high resolution flattener preset will be fine—if you had a lot of very small type on a transparent page you might need a text resolution higher than 1200. If you export your own transparency it's easy enough to look at the quality in Acrobat. Here's an exaggerated low res flattener where I've forced the text to rasterize vs. the default high res: ... View more

Happy to hear it works for you. I'm in the US, Newburyport—north of Boston. ... View more

Also worked for me in OSX. I copied the entire workspaces folder though: ... View more

Regardless of the discussion of workflow previously, there are some quite valid uses for such a function -- none of which damage or hinder a good workflow they simply address a completely different need. ID's probably has the most thorough scripting API of any app out there—there are even things you can script that aren't in the GUI. It's there for good reason—you think single page PDFs are important, I would never dream of sending out a job as single PDFs. No matter how feature rich ID gets there will be users who think the Adobe engineers are idiots for not including the items on their wishlist. There are thousands of free scripts that address unusual workflows like single page PDFs. ... View more

AppleScript will "fix" the tell block depending on the app you have open when you open the script in ScriptEditor. You probably had CS5 running when you checked the script? Anyway should run fine from the ID script panel ... View more

I just installed CS6 and wrote an Applescript that expands on John's JavaScript (post #4). The script displays a dialog that lets you choose between print scaling and pixel scaling. If you use John's JavaScript you have to make a zoom change before the new scaling takes effect—the zoom change is included in my script: http://www.zenodesign.com/forum/DisplayScale.zip ... View more

Actually, it was 10th grade, and it WAS fun then. Well, you didn't have Ms. Corcoran. ... View more

sin60 and (sqr root of 3) x.5 both give the same ratio. Math IS fun as long as your not in ninth grade. ... View more

The ratio of the base to the height of an equilateral triangle is the sqare root of 3  x the base divided by 2. So for a 2" equialteral the height is (1.732 x 2)/2 ... View more

Window>Object & Layout>Transform ... View more

You can set both Photoshop's and ID's rulers to pixels by control clicking them, and in ID you can get a picture frame's dimension from the Transform or Control panel: In Photoshop you can set the crop tool to your frame's dimensions leaving the Resolution field empty: The cropped image will fit exactly into the ID frame: ... View more

InDesign can do so many gee whiz things, I never suspected that it couldn't handle this I don't think it's possible. If you have an image that stops at the gutter how would Indesign know what to bleed? Peter's right the best way to handle wire-O is build the bleed into the document from the start. If you have crossovers you'll need to duplicate the image frame and offset left and right. If your inside margins are generous enough and there are no crossovers, the easiest solution might be to change the trim size rather than trying to resize the doc. ... View more