Seps in Preps

[Sonic_Nerdish]

Is there any way to get Preps to show only the colors that are in the image area of an imported file in the print dialog box? If I import a file that has black and a spot color, cyan, magenta and yellow are still in the print dialogue box, even though they are not in the file. I will get 5 plates if I print as is. I'm guessing it has something to do with marks in the template or crop marks in the file being registration. I was spoiled at another print shop with Prinect Printready and Signastation. When outputing files to the plate burner, it would show only the colors in the imported file. If it was a 2 color job, I would see black and the spot color, not cyan, magenta, or yellow.

[born2print]

Originally Posted by Sonic_Nerdish

Is there any way to get Preps to show only the colors that are in the image area of an imported file in the print dialog box? If I import a file that has black and a spot color, cyan, magenta and yellow are still in the print dialogue box, even though they are not in the file. I will get 5 plates if I print as is. I'm guessing it has something to do with marks in the template or crop marks in the file being registration. I was spoiled at another print shop with Prinect Printready and Signastation. When outputing files to the plate burner, it would show only the colors in the imported file. If it was a 2 color job, I would see black and the spot color, not cyan, magenta, or yellow.

I think the short answer is basically no, and I think marks etc... is pretty much why. Hopefully the people making plates have some job specs to follow so you don't waste too many plates, yes?

[sequoyah]

The Preps separations tab has always shown all four CMYK colors plus job spot colors plus template spot colors. It has nothing to do with marks or registration. You can test this without doing any output by selecting a template that has pages only and no marks.

The downside of having all these colors in the separations tab is that it will produce blank media output for any color that is turned on whether there is anything in the job pages in that color or not. So it's best to always start by turning all colors off, then turn on the ones you really need to output.