Preflighting InD files

[mhari@ihug.com.au]

Hi,

The situation is I had a pdf placed in InD (mac OSX 10.4.4). I
preflighted the file and it came up with no problems, no rgb images. I
sent the file to the rip, and the job went on the press. The colours
looked odd, so I went back to check the file out. As preflighting
reported no rgb images I went back to the placed pdf. With the 'touch
up object tool' selected, I control + clicked on one of the suspect
coloured areas and selected 'edit object' in the contextual menu. The
coloured panel opened in Photoshop, and lo and behold, it's an rgb.

So now, I have to apply CMS on the rip, and re-plate the entire job.

Has InD preflighted correctly in this case? Shouldn't the pdf have
come up as rgb? Obviously it's impractical to control + click through
every pdf looking for rgb images! Should we perhaps apply cms to every
job as a matter of course? The downside is that this slows down the
ripping process.

Just looking for some opinions.

Thanks,
Mhari

[Lee Blevins]

<mhari@ihug.com.au> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> The situation is I had a pdf placed in InD (mac OSX 10.4.4). I
> preflighted the file and it came up with no problems, no rgb images. I
> sent the file to the rip, and the job went on the press. The colours
> looked odd, so I went back to check the file out. As preflighting
> reported no rgb images I went back to the placed pdf. With the 'touch
> up object tool' selected, I control + clicked on one of the suspect
> coloured areas and selected 'edit object' in the contextual menu. The
> coloured panel opened in Photoshop, and lo and behold, it's an rgb.
>
> So now, I have to apply CMS on the rip, and re-plate the entire job.
>
> Has InD preflighted correctly in this case? Shouldn't the pdf have
> come up as rgb? Obviously it's impractical to control + click through
> every pdf looking for rgb images! Should we perhaps apply cms to every
> job as a matter of course? The downside is that this slows down the
> ripping process.
>
> Just looking for some opinions.
>
> Thanks,
> Mhari

What kind of rip and what are you calling "CMS?"

I'm going to assume you apply a profile to profile conversion of your
ripped data. I'd shudder to think that you would batch process a lot of
postscript files with some color converter before you rip them.

My first response would be to color manage it in InDesign. From what
I've experienced, ID does a pretty good job of color space converting.

Has that been considered in your workflow and if so, what would be the
reasons to not pursue it?

[mhari@ihug.com.au]

Lee Blevins wrote:

> <mhari@ihug.com.au> wrote:
>

> > Hi,
> >
> > The situation is I had a pdf placed in InD (mac OSX 10.4.4). I
> > preflighted the file and it came up with no problems, no rgb images. I
> > sent the file to the rip, and the job went on the press. The colours
> > looked odd, so I went back to check the file out. As preflighting
> > reported no rgb images I went back to the placed pdf. With the 'touch
> > up object tool' selected, I control + clicked on one of the suspect
> > coloured areas and selected 'edit object' in the contextual menu. The
> > coloured panel opened in Photoshop, and lo and behold, it's an rgb.
> >
> > So now, I have to apply CMS on the rip, and re-plate the entire job.
> >
> > Has InD preflighted correctly in this case? Shouldn't the pdf have
> > come up as rgb? Obviously it's impractical to control + click through
> > every pdf looking for rgb images! Should we perhaps apply cms to every
> > job as a matter of course? The downside is that this slows down the
> > ripping process.
> >
> > Just looking for some opinions.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mhari

>
> What kind of rip and what are you calling "CMS?"
>
> I'm going to assume you apply a profile to profile conversion of your
> ripped data. I'd shudder to think that you would batch process a lot of
> postscript files with some color converter before you rip them.
>
> My first response would be to color manage it in InDesign. From what
> I've experienced, ID does a pretty good job of color space converting.
>
> Has that been considered in your workflow and if so, what would be the
> reasons to not pursue it?

Well, I'll start by saying I'm far from an expert on this, I've pushed,
but it's not a priority where I work. We have a CelebraNT rip, with a
colour profile from one of our presses for cms. We use this to convert
rgb to cmyk rather than InD. My question is really about the way InD
preflighted the file though - I was surprised it reported no rgb images
when the placed pdf actually had rgb images in it.

Thanks,
Mhari