Spot Color Limitation

[Chris_Koch@adobeforums.com]

Is there some kind of limitation on the number of spot colors that can be in an Illustrator CS EPS? I've only been able to save 27 in a single file in CS, but was able to save all of them in an Ill. 10 file.

[jonf@adobeforums.com]

Since spot colors are generally intended to represent inks, it's unlikely you could ever need 27 or more spot colors in any document. If you save your colors as cmyk (or rgb) swatches, set as "global" colors, they should accomplish the same thing for you as spot colors that aren't intended as inks. Of course, I'm not on CS so I can't verify whether there's a limit on global process colors in CS.

[Larry_G._Schneider@adobeforums.com]

Yes, there is a limit of 28 spot colors in a file. Do a search as there has been some discssion of this lately.

Larry

[Phosphor@adobeforums.com]

Hmm...

I wonder what software the print house for the Pantone swatch books uses to work around this.

Man, I sure would like to inspect that workflow from beginning to end.

[John_Slate@adobeforums.com]

I wonder what software the print house for the Pantone swatch books uses
to work around this.




I would imagine they use some master plates and just change the inks.

Like printing a single page from the swatch book, like 40 up or some thing on a 6 or 7 unit press (one unit for each swatch on the page and a unit to print the type-labels).

Then keep the same plates (except for the type plate), wash up the swatch printing units, load with the inks for the next page... hmmm... still seems like alot of work.

Imagine the quality control... for a place that produces the standard itself.

[Dee Holmes]

Wow, never thought of that. Hmmm...