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• • April 26, 2019 at 2:30 pm #116272
    Jeffrey Stern

    Member

    So I know David and others suggest using RGB images and letting InDesign convert them to CMYK when outputting a PDF, but I wanted to be clear if this works with a document that has both RGB, CMYK and grayscale images. I’m working on a a coffee table type art book with a large number of images. Most have been supplied as either RGB tiffs or jpgs, but there are a few that were supplied in CMYK and grayscale. There are also a few placed PDFs that include CMYK artwork.

    So can InDesign still handle this conversion to CMYK or will I need to manually go back into Photoshop and convert to CMYK from there?

    Also, there are a few “grayscale looking” images that were supplied as rgb jpgs (that is they look as if they are grayscale but are really rgb. Will printing these as cmyk also look ok?

    The book is printing offset with a printer in England (I’m in the US). I still need to get their profiles for output but wanted to get understand whether InDesign can handle the color conversion with different color profile images in the same document.

    Thanks

    Jeff

  • April 26, 2019 at 2:56 pm #116273
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Hi Jeffrey, yes, InDesign can do the conversion of RGB to CMYK. By default, CMYK images will be passed through unaffected. Grayscale images that are RGB will be treated as though they were color, so they will convert to a four-color CMYK. Grayscale is trickier… InDesign will normally just pass them through unaffected, which may be what you want.

    If you have access to Lynda.com/LinkedIn Learning, I encourage you to take a look at my course “InDesign Color Management” which should give a pretty fast overview of the various factors.

  • June 4, 2019 at 1:07 pm #117042
    Jeffrey Stern

    Member

    Another InDesign color conversion question. So when exporting a PDF from an InDesign book file (.indb file), I get the message, “your documents may have different source color profiles defined resulting in unexpected output.”

    Is this just referencing the fact that I have placed images with different color profiles or is this telling me that individual chapter documents have different color profiles? I’m working on a 200+ page book with images from different sources that I have left as RGB images (all have a color profile assigned, just not all are the same). The PDF is set to convert images to FoGRa39 on output.

    Just want to make sure I’m understanding the warning correctly.

    Thanks

  • June 4, 2019 at 1:19 pm #117043
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    What is Transparency Blend Space set to in the Edit menu?

  • June 4, 2019 at 1:22 pm #117044
    Jeffrey Stern

    Member

    Document CMYK

  • June 6, 2019 at 6:40 am #117064
    Jeffrey Stern

    Member

    David

    Turns out I had changed my color space from when i started the project to the FoGra39, but a couple of chapters still had US Swap assigned. So I re-assigned all chapters to the printer’s desired color space.

    Also, someone on the InDesign forums posted this interesting script that can check for different image color assignments and can also update them if necessary. The site is in German, but if you download the script and load it into InDesign, the dialog boxes show in English. Link: https://www.rolanddreger.net/de/1/farbmanagement-in-adobe-indesign/#

  • June 6, 2019 at 8:00 am #117065
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Nice! Thanks for sharing. Yes, InDesign does NOT make it easy to know what profile is attached to an INDD document! Frustrating.

    • August 27, 2020 at 12:48 pm #126721
      Steve Laskevitch

      Participant

      Amen to that. The many documents that compose a “book” can be in different color spaces and transparency blend spaces. That check is one of the last I do before outputting for print or ePub.

  • August 21, 2020 at 1:01 pm #126665
    Filip Mircea

    Member

    Hello everybody!
    Do you know why my gray’s profiles on Indesign are missing?
    All of my dot gray’s % are missing.
    I can not find anywhere a file for adobe color profiles to install on my mac.
    I use a mac book pro from 2016 and Indesign CC.
    Can anyone help me, please!
    Kind regards,
    Miru

    • August 21, 2020 at 3:50 pm #126666
      David Blatner

      Keymaster

      @Filip: It probably depends on where you are looking. Do you see them if you look in View > Proof Setup > Custom…?
      Sometimes they’re there and sometimes they’re gone… for example, if you export PDF to PDF/X1-a standard, you won’t see them. If you change the preset setting to remove the pdf/x1-a tag, then they show up. Tricky!

    • August 24, 2020 at 10:39 am #126679
      Filip Mircea

      Member

      Thank you, Sir! Indeed it was related to the pdf standards.

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