dcs spot color files to cmyk

Sorry if this has been dealt with before, but I did a search and nothing seemed to apply.

Had a file submitted as an .eps file. But when opened it was a .dcs 2 spot channel file.

Usually this would be a good thing, considering we often work with spot colors, and no one seems to supply us with separated spot channel files.

But this time it is a process job. I tried for a couple of hours trying to change it back to cmyk with no luck. What am I missing?

I tried to import it into AI10.03, thinking I would just export it back into Photoshop, nope. I tried placing it in Quark 4.11, saving as an .eps, nope. I tried saving it as a .psd without spot color checked, nope.

I'm so busy right now, that I just sent it back to customer service to have the art resent as a cmyk document. But I would like to know for future reference if there is a way to do this.

Thank you for any resposes. (And I hope this doesn't end up in the Gotta Love Stupid Questions catagory.)

In the channels window, click on the spot's name and from the triangle (top right side of the channels window) chose "merge spot channel".

That option is grayed out.

Make sure it was set correctly.
Double click the name of the so-called spot and make it so (or delete it?).

The colors are black and Pantone 185 C. It looks like it was set correctly. I do have the split channel option, but then I get 2 gray channels and when I try and merge them, the different modes are grayed out.

Merge spots is only an option in a CMYK file that has spot channels.

In a black and spot multichannel file there is nothing to merge into.

Copy the black channel, open new doc in CMYK mode, target the black channel and paste.

Next drag and drop the PMS185 channel from the multichannel files channels palette into the window of your new CMYK doc.

Highlight the newly created spot channel in the CMYK file, and choose the merge spot channel option.

Of course the other orption is to simply do a multichannel to CMYK mode change, but the result will be inferior.

Dee:
The Merge Spot Channel only works if you still have all of your CMYK, or RGB, channels in the document.

In your case, you don't have those channels so try this:

File/Print.
Click the Save As PDF button.
Open the resulting .pdf file in Photoshop and you will find that it now opens as a normal RGB file and the spot colors have been successfully merged

Thank you John and Ann. I will try both of your suggestions Monday morning.

Have a good weekend.

What am I missing?

channels.

John and Ann, that worked great, thanx again.