Duotone issues with InDesign CS

[Biz_Notch@adobeforums.com]

Hey all,

I found a weird thing happen the other day and was wondering if anyone else could duplicate it.

I have a duotone EPS image I did in Photoshop CS. The 2 colors I am using in the duotone are not spot colors, just using the color picker tool and then naming them. My first color I called "blue 1" and the other color I called "yellow 1".

When I place this EPS in InDesign CS, everything is cool. I see blue 1 and yellow 1 show up in the swatches palette and everything looks good.

The weird thing I noticed is that if I go back into Photoshop and update the duotone color (for example, I change the CMYK breakdown of either blue 1 or yellow 1) and then I resave the image, InDesign does not update the swatches palette with the new blue 1 and yellow 1.

So to clarify, what happens is the following:

After I place the duotone, I have my 2 new swatches -- blue 1 and yellow 1.

blue 1 has a CMYK breakdown of 95,25,0,0
yellow 1 has a CMYK breakdown of 0,10,80,0

I go back to Photoshop and change blue 1 to a new CMYK breakdown (85,15,0,0) and yellow 1 to 0,10,95,0.

When I update the image within InDesign, the blue 1 and yellow 1 swatches in the palette still have the old CMYK values, even though I changed them within Photoshop.

My only workaround at the moment is to simply rename the duotones to something like blue 2 and yellow 2 so that InDesign adds those as new swatches.

Can anyone else reproduce this? Just remember I am not using spot colors in my duotone... which I think is legal, right? :-)

[Bob_Levine]

I don't understand the purpose of this excercise, to be honest. If you
want CMYK, why not just use CMYK and be done with it. Duotone is for
spot color printing.

Bob

[Dave_Saunders@adobeforums.com]

I think that unless you choose the process colors in Photoshop's duotone window, then the colors are inded spot and not process. The process values you provide are for screen display only.

What inks appear in InDesign's Separations preview?

Dave

[Biz_Notch@adobeforums.com]

Robert,

I suppose that even though my two chosen colors were selected by using the color picker in Photoshop CS, they still come into InDesign as SPOT colors (in my case, named "blue 1" and "yellow 1"). Although when I double click on either one, it says COLOR TYPE: SPOT and then below that COLOR MODE: CMYK. And below it shows you what the CMYK values are.

My problem is that if I go back to Photoshop and redefine "blue 1" or "yellow 1" (by changing the CMYK values) and then update the palced EPS file in InDesign, the swatches palette does not update the 2 colors with the new values. It keeps the values from the first time the duotone was placed. This is a problem that doesn't happen when you select pantone colors as each of the duotone colors... And I only noticed this because I was trying to print a few variations of a duotone image using my selected values as the colors and I noticed that each print was coming out the same. I realized what was happening was that InDesign was not updating the 2 colors I defined after each time the image got updated in Photoshop. And this was even after I went into the links palette to update the link.

So maybe one question here is, are CMYK spot colors created as duotone colors in Photoshop ACTUAL spot colors? Or is the only valid way to create a duotone with a Pantone-type color?

I guess the point of this exercise is to determine whether InDesign should be updating these colors after they are changed... if it should, then I think I found a bug.

Strangest thing about this is that InDesign will update the way the image LOOKS in the application after the duotone colors have been modified, but does not actually update the values of the colors so when you print, the image appears the same as the first time.

I was hoping someone else could verify that this happens with them.

[Bob_Levine]

IMO, even if it is a bug, it's meaningless. Duotones are for spot
colors, not CMYK colors. Someone else may disagree but I honestly don't
see the point in what you're doing.

Bob

[Uwe_Rottkamp@adobeforums.com]

Pardon me,

but as Bob I don't really understand what purpose of what you're doing. i.e.
why do you export your PSD-file to EPD instead of placing it as native
PSD-file in ID?
Do you want to get spot-colours to film or process-separated films?
Working with spot-colours you better use the famous spot-feature in PS-CS.

Uwe

> I was hoping someone else could verify that this happens with them.

[Biz_Notch@adobeforums.com]

I know it doesn't seem like there is a point in doing this since duotones traditionally are made of 2 spot colors.

But one of my questions relates to what occurs when you create a duotone with 2 CMYK colors. It seems that when this is brought into InDesign, they become spot colors. But then I wonder how a spot color can be created from CMYK anyway...

Instead of criticizing what you think is meaningless, can you please help me to understand what is going on here? I agree that if a duotone is not "valid" unless it's created from 2 Pantones (or similar), then perhaps this bug is a non-issue. But if duotones are valid when created with 2 CMYK colors then I think this IS an issue...

Btw, Uwe -- I probably could just save this as a PSD instead of an EPS. I hadn't tried that. I suppose I was just used to keeping my duotones as EPS files. I'll see if I get the same issue when I save as PSD.

[Bob_Levine]

They seem like spot colors. But what colors will the printer use when
you send them the file. They're going to see color one and color two and
then they're going to ask you just exactly what color you want?

I'll repeat what I've already said. This is a pointless way to work.

Bob

[Dave_Saunders@adobeforums.com]

Of course, you could always convert the spots back to CMYK on output -- I hear songs of circles in my head: Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel...

Dave

[Bob_Levine]

Yup, that you can do. But you simply can't convert CMYK to spot.

Bob

[Ida_Engmark@adobeforums.com]

know it doesn't seem like there is a point in doing this since duotones
traditionally are made of 2 spot colors.





But one of my questions relates to what occurs when you create a duotone
with 2 CMYK colors. It seems that when this is brought into InDesign,
they become spot colors. But then I wonder how a spot color can be created
from CMYK anyway...





Instead of criticizing what you think is meaningless, can you please help
me to understand what is going on here? I agree that if a duotone is not
"valid" unless it's created from 2 Pantones (or similar), then perhaps
this bug is a non-issue. But if duotones are valid when created with 2
CMYK colors then I think this IS an issue...




When you create a doutone image, you create two new spot colours. Even if you use RGB og CMYK colour spaces. The spot colours may have the on-screen values of a normal CMYK or RGB color, but when seperated, the colour will have it's own plate. (A cmyk colour consisting of several inks, can't be produced from only one plate - unless you pre-mix your colour, but that's an other story).

Any colour can be created as a Spot-colour. But to print the colour the printer has to know what it consists of. Ie. to get the CMYK color C0 M100 Y100 K0 produced from one single plate, the printer has to mix an equal amount of red and yellow colour. In theory this ofcourse is no problem. But in reality the process is highly time consuming, and a lot more expensive.

So getting back to your question. When you create a doutone image with pantone colours you'll have natural spot colors. Every colour has a name and so on. When using CMYK to create a duotone image, you have to name your colors. Now, when you change a Pantone Colour in a Doutone image, the name will automatically update to the correct name. But since Cmyk values haven't got a name tag, you'll have to enter a new name, in order for INdesign to detect the changes. This is also nescessary for Pantone Colours, but because it happens automatically you're not likely to notice.

Why doesn't the colours update then? If one colour is used throughout an entire document and this colour can be edited and updated outside Indesign, how much do you think you'd be able to rely on you settings? I for one wouldn't want my Orange colour turning out blue, just because I edited it somewhere in pS, or other program.

/ Ida