Colourizing a placed .eps's problem.

[Jonathan_costello@adobeforums.com]

Hi folks im having difficulty colourizing a placed .eps in indesign.
I originated the ,eps in Illustrator and its all in black, I want to place the design into Indesign and colourisze the .eps aso I can output it as a pantone.

Can anybody help me on this one, it just doset seem to be letting me colourise the placed eps graphic, am I miss a box cheack in saving the .eps?

Cheers folks...

[Heather Bell]

It won't let you because you can't colorize and ecapsulated postscript. You can save the file as a TIF instead and then use the white selection tool to colorize within InDesign, or you can apply the PMS information within in Illustrator and resave the EPS.

[michael_kulpa@adobeforums.com]

Color it in Illustrator and replace. Indesign doesn't let you change color on a vector eps.

[Peter_Truskier@adobeforums.com]

Indesign doesn't let you change color on a vector eps.




Not directly as PageMaker used to.

However, if you use a spot color in the EPS (e.g., "My Color"), you could then use InDesign's Ink Manager to alias "My Color" to an InDesign-created spot color. This may be useful in cases where you want to use the same art over and over again, but using different colors from time to time. You can even convert the "aliased-to" color to process after you have aliased the EPS color to it.

Be aware, though that you must turn on "Overprint Preview" in InDesign to see the effect of the Ink Manager's aliasing.

[Bob Levine]

> Not directly as PageMaker used to.

Which was a dangerous kludge.

Bob

[Peter_Truskier@adobeforums.com]

Which was a dangerous kludge.




Out of curiosity, Bob, what was so dangerous about it? Is it that the applied color wasn't visible on screen or what?

In any case, some PageMaker users came to depend on it, and are disappointed that they can't do the same thing in InDesign.

[Brutus_Maximus@adobeforums.com]

I have used the PageMaker "colorize grayscale EPS" technique many thousands of times over the years, both as a designer and as an EPP tech. Never once have I experienced any problems. That's one of the few things I miss about PageMaker. It was a tremendous time-saver.

[Bob Levine]

Ask your printers how they feel about it. EPS files are not intended to
be messed with. Hence the E for encapsulated.

Bob

[Brutus_Maximus@adobeforums.com]

I am the printer! ;-)

[Richard_Sohanchyk@adobeforums.com]

But are you an encapsulated printer?

[Bob Levine]

Well, maybe I'm just overly cautious.

Bob

[Gerald_Singelmann@adobeforums.com]

what was so dangerous about it?




There are EPS that allow colourizing. There are plenty more EPS with which it is not possible.

The background is that a priori you know nothing of the dialect of the PostScript in the EPS which you have to disect to change a colour. You never know for sure if the change is as local as you want it to be. It works only if the Postscript dialect is the same as the one of the app doing the colourization.
The prize for safe PostScript-editing software is usually above $10.000. Which indicates the enormity of the task.

If you never had problems then you always only (either deliberately or by coincidence) used the first kind (e.g. Postscript Level 1 EPS from Photoshop).

Gerald

[John_Kallios@adobeforums.com]

>Out of curiosity, Bob, what was so dangerous about it? Is it that the

applied color wasn't visible on screen or what?




The newly designated color was not honored in every rip. (or so I remember)

I am also one who has used the feature many times with 100% success rate. Because the rip could handle it and it was always the last second to get the work out. :D

When using with the pict b/w preview, screen preview still showed black thus causing more confusion to the average dim witted prepress person. (;)) With b/w tif previews, screen preview would be applied to the correct pms color thus help ease this problem.

Regardless of its usability, the point is moot now.

[Peter_Truskier@adobeforums.com]

Regardless of its usability, the point is moot now.




Not for those still using PageMaker...

I know that it's mostly moot, which is why I suggested the Ink Manager Alias Gambit (IMAG™). However, in my days in a prepress house, I never had a problem with that feature either, and wanted to ask the question.

Gerald's answer is interesting, but rather academic, and (it seems to me) would lead one to argue that Adobe Transparency Flattener technology might not be capable of reliably processing placed EPS elements as they interact with transparency, but it seems to do a pretty good job.

[Bjorn_Ost@adobeforums.com]

In certain circumstances (maybe a bug in the swedish version of Pagemaker?) when you had clicked a color with nothing else selected and thereby making it default, eps files placed after that would be colored that color in print. Since it did not display on screen with the color in question it could be hard to catch.

Not sure what triggered that behaviour, it was not always reproducable. Normally you would have to click the color after placement to colorize.

I'm a cautious guy and never had a problem with it, but my boss made a magazine with randomly red colored eps ads throughout.

[Gerald_Singelmann@adobeforums.com]

Gerald's answer is interesting, but rather academic,




Remind me (PageMaker is sooo long ago ;): what kinds of EPS did you apply a colour to?
Did you do this with any EPS coming from e.g. Corel Draw? With success?
Or was ist a particular kind of EPS, like a one colour job from Illustrator saved as AI-EPS V5 or older?

Thanks
Gerald

[Jonathan_costello@adobeforums.com]

Cheers guys. I knew you could do it with a tiff thought you might be able with an .eps as well. oh well im sure ill find a work around. I think coloring it in Ill is my best option. then Importing it.

Thanks again.

[Bjorn_Ost@adobeforums.com]

I think coloring it in Ill is my best option. then Importing it.




Well, there is always copy-paste from illustrator (set clipboard to aicb and preserve paths) which gives you an editable vectordrawing in Indesign that you are free to recolor as you please.

[Brutus_Maximus@adobeforums.com]

The beauty of the PageMaker approach was that it would apply the appropriate tints of a spot color throughout a grayscale EPS. Say, for example, you received a job with an RGB EPS graphic, but the job was supposed to separate as K + PMS 281. It's easy enough to convert the RGB graphic to grayscale in Illustrator--one click, and it's done. But how then do you apply the appropriate tints of PMS 281 to the grayscale elements? If you just select all in Illustrator and apply 100% PMS 281, it turns into a silhouette of the graphic, tinted uniformly in 100% PMS 281. It could take over an hour to select every individual element in the graphic and apply the appropriate tint of PMS 281. Or you could just plunk the grayscale graphic in PageMaker, apply PMS 281, and print to PDF. Shazam! The entire graphic is tinted correctly and ready to place, either as PDF or--by doing a quick Save As in Illustrator--as EPS. What might take hours of work is done in two or three minutes.

I understand the arguments that the way PageMaker did this was a heinous violation of the "encapsulated" principle in EPS. But the simple fact is that it worked reliably, day in and day out, allowing me to meet deadlines that would have been impossible otherwise. Perhaps what we should request is not that such a capability be added to InDesign, but to Illustrator, where it properly belongs.

[Gerald_Singelmann@adobeforums.com]

But the simple fact is that it worked reliably,




After you made sure that it contained nothing but gray objects, saved from Illustrator.
Yes, that I believe.
Viable and easy way.

The InDesign team, on the other hand, is very careful with ways that work only if...

Perhaps what we should request is not that such a capability be added
to InDesign, but to Illustrator, where it properly belongs.




Three times yes.

:)
Gerald