converting color vector objects to spot color in pitctop

[steve2112]

Ok maybe i am dumb but i thought i could do it. I have some vector graphics in a pdf made from publisher with i think distiller 6. Now my vector objects with tints in them have about a billion paths and when i highlight them to convert all paths change to the same spot color. Is there anyway to preserve the tints when converting vector objects to spot colors. I have cs2 and pitstop 6

steve

[TimS]

Bring up Pitstop global change -> object color. Select one of your objects, then hit the left "grab fill" or "grab stroke" button. Use the replace colour on the right side to load your pms color and choose "entire document" to replace throughout. Might take a while to hunt all the different tints down. I have the Prinergy colour separations plugin for acrobat which allows me to see the different seps, and see the ones that aren't spot.

[steve2112]

That didn't work. Thats what I do for most things. But these vector objects can many colors and it won't let you do a global color change on them. I can convert them to greyscale in pitsop but then when i want to replace with the single pms color tint it doesn't work. It puts all the tints as 100% of the red 32.

My work around was open the page in Illy. delete all but the object i need. Save as a greyscale tiff and then color it in indesign. It worked nice and was to much work but I would liek to have done it in acrobat.

The pdf isn't being saved for me with gradients. It get broken up and each variation of the tint is becomng its own object so I have a lot of objects all with clipping mask.

steve

[TimS]

Ah yes, a blend would certainly make that difficult.

There was a thread a while ago on recolouring clipart to a PMS colour, you might find something helpful in there:

http://www.prepressforums.com/ftopict-7385.html

[ronmatt]

you could try messing around with Tools > convert color. ( an Acrbat 7 action, not pitstop ) or, if you print out of Preps, change the spot colors in the print dialog.

[ronmatt]

back again. I just made a simple pdf in In Design using PMS 032, Rubine and rhodamine red. Brought it to Acro 7 and did the tools thing. I clicked on the Rhodamine and the Rubine and then in the dropdown menu ( where it says 'Preserve") clicked on 'map to 032. It worked fine. all colors were converted. I don't know how complex your problem is, But this always works for me.

[steve2112]

hmm maybe you are miss understanding. The objects that nee to be converted are rgb vector objects with all different colors. I wish i could just map them to one color that would be easy. But its when they are multi colored objects that things get a bit crazy.

steve

[kierst_thara]

I think the problem has more to do with how Publisher handles the vector info than with anything Acrobat or PitStop is doing. I had a similar job recently where a client sent an xmas card in Publisher, and wanted a block of 'WordArt' to be printed as a metallic silver spot ink.

When I PDFed it and then opened it in Illustrator, all the WordArt shading became hundreds of little objects with clipping masks, just like you said. In my file though, the masked objects actually seemed to be bitmap images underneath the clipping path, according to the links palette. If your file is doing the same thing, that might be why Acrobat and Pitstop don't see them as tints. I think I ended up exporting the WordArt as a 1200 dpi bitmap, and then making it a spot colour monotone in Photoshop. Ugly, but hey, that's what you get when you send Publisher files.