Pitstop seeing spot colors that don't exist (Matt?)

[colorblind]

Here's a weird one guys, prepared an ad for newspaper (CMYK) and supplied a final trapped PDFX1a with no densities exceeding 158%. Needed trapping because I had 41 pts black text overlapping white and 50c 8m tint area, so instead of leaving my text K overprinting, I colored it 50c 8m 100k. Check the ad in the paper and see strong yellow where there shouldn't be any (it should have been K only, 50c and 8m chocking underneath). Call the paper, they tell me I had spot colors according to Pitstop. Knowing this was odd, I check my PDF in output preview: cmyk only. Place the PDF in InDesign separation preview, same thing. Run an Acrobat preflight profile "Document generate more than 4 plates" everything is OK. Send it to my old Harlequin rip and Roam: everything separates as expected. Then I try Pitstop, select my trapping area with inspector and it tells me it's got 3 spot plates, 0% C, 0% M and 0% Y. So that's what happened, every zone that Pitstop mistakenly designated as spot got manually or automatically converted to CMYK, adding that unwanted yellow (and stronger magenta than expected for that matter). If anyone has an idea why Pitstop is behaving differently than other Adobe applications and an old rip when it comes to see how many plates a PDF actually has, your opinion is welcome. I also attach screen captures. My PDF is generated by ApogeeX 3.5. Thanks to all.

[colorblind]

Matt, you Pitstop Guru, where are you? Have you ever seen this? Anyone?

[mattbeals]

send me the PDF.

[colorblind]

I knew they would find you somewhere :-)
I sent you a PM letting you know where it is.

Thanks again Matt.

[colorblind]

So Matt, are you as puzzled as I am about that PDF-Pitstop issue?
Did you have a look at the PDF I sent you?

[colorblind]

Here is the answer from Enfocus, they admit nothing is wrong with my PDF but their terminology of "Spot color" doesn't always point to non-process (CMYK) colors. That means that a CMYK mix could be tagged by Pitstop as a "Spot Color". Sounds dangerous to me to rely on Pitstop automation to delete/convert "Spot Colors"...

Hi,

To me, it seems like a terminology issue. I can't see anything wrong
with the PDF.

PDF allows colors to be defined in multiple ways. One way is to say 0,
0, 0, 30% CMYK.
But yet another of these ways is to call them by the name of the ink and
to say 30% of the ink Black.

From the standpoint of the amount of ink on paper, all three are equal
but there can be other kinds of side-effects, esperially in the area of
overprint.

That's why PitStop prefers to call the color based on the way they are
used in the file. And because 'calling the ink by name' is the only way
that is possible for spot colors, we call this 'Spot color'. We also do
this for process colors, so 'Spot Color Black' is the process black (the
K) but called by its name.

So if you see Spot Color Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or Black, don't worry:
these won't generate additional plates. And our check on 'spot color is
used' will not trigger an error either.
But we do want to show it to you on the inspector because for overprint
it does matter whether it is Spot Color Black or CMYK-black

Kind regards,

Andy Den Tandt

============================================
Andy Den Tandt
Technical Product Manager
Enfocus - an Artwork Systems Brand
http://www.enfocus.com

Artwork Systems N.V.
Artwork Toren
Bellevue 5/1101, B-9050 Gent, Belgium
T: +32 9 265 84 11
F: +32 9 265 84 10
============================================