Color changes opening a PDF

CM
Posted By
carol_mcgann
Jul 8, 2004
Views
353
Replies
7
Status
Closed
This is a problem in which 3 Adobe programs (Photoshop CS, Pagemaker 7, and Acrobat Distiller) collaborate to mess things up, but I’ll start here. I’m using WinXP.

I publish in a publication that needs type to be 100% black. The type layout is complex enough that I do it in PageMaker (where I have defined it as 100% black), make a PDF of it, and open that in Photoshop, where I add the photo part. However, when Photoshop opens the PDF, it kindly converts the black to 69C 67M 64Y 74K. This would probably look better most places, but not where I am publishing. Is there any way I can get Photoshop not to change this?

An aside: previously, in PageMaker 6.5 and Photoshop 6, I could get it to stay 100% black if I used the "export PDF" function in PageMaker; but if I did a "print" to a .ps file, then opened Distiller and made the .pdf, the black would be converted when I opened it in Photoshop. So I don’t know which program is at fault…

Alternatively, is there a way I can change this 69C/67M/64Y/74K black to 100% black, without the result looking wimpy? I’ve played with the color channels some (e.g., adjust levels on the black channel and delete the info from the CMY channels), but I’ve never gotten satisfactory results.
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L
LenHewitt
Jul 8, 2004
Carol,

A better workflow would be to place the Photoshop image into Pagemaker and then add the text.

Photoshop’s default black is a ‘rich black’. To overide that you would need to create a custom CMYK colour space with Black Generation set to maximum, and use that as your CMYK working space.
CM
carol_mcgann
Jul 9, 2004
I’ve done it that direction, but the photos look better printed directly from Photoshop: they deteriorate just a little on being placed in PageMaker. Also, the publication wants me to send them a tiff or psd, and won’t take a PageMaker document. I’ll look into the custom color space.
L
LenHewitt
Jul 9, 2004
Carol,

the publication wants me to send them a tiff or psd<<

In this day and age, surely they can accept PDF???
CM
carol_mcgann
Jul 9, 2004
Believe it or not…their specs have said for several years "we’re working on accepting pdfs, but can’t yet"! I don’t think they’re working very hard at it. And this is a national publication with a 30,000 circulation, not some local newsletter!
AC
Aaron_Cramer
Jul 9, 2004
you need to adjust your color settings to maximum. Hit shift control K, under CMYK go to Custom CMYK and change your black generation to maximum. that should solve your prob.
L
LenHewitt
Jul 9, 2004
Believe it or not…their specs have said for several years <<

Pitiful, Carol…..
CM
carol_mcgann
Aug 30, 2004
I found another, easier way to do this. You make a separate image of the part you want 100% black, then convert that to grayscale. Then you paste that into the black channel of a new CMYK document; then you can add in other color items. The pasted layer will stay 100% black. It seems to only want to paste onto the background layer; trying to paste it into any other layer puts in the "marching ants", but no fill. Oh well, background will work.

I did try the black generation set to maximum and it worked, but that of course interfered with the full color photo that is supposed to be in the same document; that method ended up having to combine several documents made with different color spaces.

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