Expert: Glen Demers - 5/27/2009

Question
Hello, I am relatively new to preparing documents for press.  I am creating a monthly newsletter and need some advice.  I recieve some pre-made ads and create some myself.  My press has told me that some of the ads have 4 color black that needs to be changed to 1 color black, and some of my colors picked in InDesign using the CMYK library are "4 color green and 4 color blue"  The blue and green are thin strokes around text boxes in a calendar.  The press said these are too thin to create in 4 color and need to be changed to 1 color blue and green.

1 - How do I change the 4 color black to 1 color black?
2 - How do I change 4 color colors to 1 color colors?
3 - When I recieve a pre-made ad, is there a way to tell if any of the black is 4 or 1 color black?
4 - Many ads I recieve are pdf, which my press doesn't like.  I convert them in Acrobat to CMYK .tiffs.  Is there a better way to convert these?  I'm a little leery of taking them into Photoshop to convert as this rasterizes the small text.

Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!

Answer
Hi Sandy,

In InDesign look at the swatch palette, all the colors that are follewed by a grey box are 4 color. If you double click on the color's swatch or name you will bring up the swatch options dialog box, here change the color type from process to spot.

The black swatch in InDesign is black only, the 4 color blacks are from the ads which usually must be opened in the application that created them for you to edit the colors. The is a plug-in for Acrobat made by Enfocus called Pitstop which is great for changing 4 color blacks to one color in pdf's.

The default black in Photoshop is 4 color which is good for images but most people don't change it to a 1 color black for type or vector shapes. This is almost impossible to change if you don't have the layered file.

Illustrator and FreeHand files are easy to change, just modify the black  in their swatch palette to 100% Black, 0% Cyan, Magent & Yellow.

When you convert PDF's to CMYK tiffs in Acrobat, you are rasterizing them. A better option would be to open the pdf in Photoshop and set the resolution to 300dpi or higher. If the ads are to be 1 color black only, you can set the color space to grayscale and avoid the 4 color black scenario altogether.

Feel free to visit our digital help center here for more help:
http://www.bestprintingonline.com/help-center.htm

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more InDesign tips please visit our help pages here: http://www.bestprintingonline.com/indesign.htm