CS save problem with pantones

[Ben_Roche@adobeforums.com]

A client has supplied a file with around 117 pantone colours per file.
I tried to re-save these in Illustrator CS as a EPS, but get the error
"Can't save the illustration. Can't print the illustration"
I am able to save it as a AI file. I can't export it to a EPS V10, as I get the same error.
I can open the files in Version 10 of AI and save them as a EPS with out a problem.

I deleted colour by colour till I found out that when I only had 28 pantones on the file (but still had 117 in the pallet) I was able to save the file as a EPS in Illustrator CS.

Is there a way around this? as CS did solve some transparency spot colour problems so I would like it to be a CS version EPS.

Thx

[Lance_K@adobeforums.com]

Hi Ben,

Illustrator CS cannot print a file that contains more than 28 spot colors, so I guess it makes some sense that it would have the same issues creating an EPS that exceeds those limits as well.

A work-around would be to convert the spot colors to global process colors. You were going to convert everything to process when you printed anyway. You weren't actually going to put 28 spot colors on a press, right?

Hope this helps,

Lance

[Big Giant Head]

Just imagine what you printer would say if you tried to have more than 6 plates!

[Ben_Roche@adobeforums.com]

Well I ended up saving them as AI and placing them into Indesign. I then exported it as a PDF as it couldn't print a PS file.
In the end I ended up with a PDF with over 1000+ pantone colours.
I could then send it to our printer.
No, I do not want to change them to process, as our rip can reconize PMS colours so it then treats them as LAB colour space bypassing the input profile. This gives us a better colour match than sending it through as a process colour.

There are mores ways to print files than sending them to a printing press. All our machines don't use any plates. Two of our printers are photographic, so they use red, green, blue lasers direct to photographic material (Lightjet 430), while we also have a 3meter wide solvent injet printer (Vutek).

I guess I'll stick with V10 or use CS AI files.

[Lance_K@adobeforums.com]

Hi Ben,

Thank you for following up with additional information.

So are you saying that your RIP has built in tables that provide LAB values for PMS color names? What RIP is this, if you don't mind my asking. I'd like to learn more about this.

By the way, I suspect the reason you couldn't print a PS file from InDesign was due to the number of spot colors. InDesign and Illustrator share the same printing technology and both have the same 28 spot limit.

Lance

[Tricia_Tahara@adobeforums.com]

Hi Ben.
I feel your pain. I send to similar output devices and have the same sort of processing of spot colours. I usually print complete Pantone charts on all substrates, which is when I encountered to spot colour limit. I had to write my ps files from one of my old copies of AI. I really hope they see this as going backward and fix this aspect of CS.

Lance K. - My large format printer uses the Onyx RIP which uses look up tables to give better representations of Pantone colours, and my Lambda (uses colour lasers to image as does the Lightjet) uses both a Cheetah RIP and a Lambda RIP. These also use tables for better spots.

If anyone finds a solution, PLEASE post it.

Also, it seems all the 2x swatches have been removed from the CS palettes. While my output devices cannot achieve true 2x colours, they do give a very different result than do the single process equivalents and sometimes they are exactly what works. Are these swatches hidden somewhere other than where they used to be?

Thanks!
Tricia

[Dee Holmes]

Tricia,

Thanks for that info on the 2x color swatches. I've always wondered why artists have used the same spot color and the same 2x color.

Very annoying for prepress when the job is just a 3 or 4 spot color job.

Also annoying if anyone is interested, using 10 different spot colors with the value 0.

Why would anyone want to do that?

[Ben_Roche@adobeforums.com]

Our Vutek uses colorburst, which has its own Pantone look up and our Lightjets uses the Onyx PosterShop, again it has its own lookup.
ColorBurst IMO does the best pantone colours (for our 8 colour Vutek) than any other rip we use (we also have Cheetah, ColourGate and use to have Wassatch).

We get ppl building files with all sorts of strange things.
Best one was a 2x Spot colour graident with transparency over a few dozen spot colour items, a whole heap of white stars, each one with its own spot colour set to 0% tint ???