If you've created your job using Spot Colors, but then you print that job in
CNYK, you have to expect that your color is going to change.
Now sometimes that's because the job's specs change, sometimes that's because
people pick colors out of the spot book, knowing that it's going to print CMYK.
My recommendation is that you always start up front with the specs for the
job, the way it's going to print, and then you specify your colors that way,
and here's why. Here we have two very bright colors,
Pantone 802 which is a fluorescent, and then Pantone green, which is also sort of
a fluorescent. So that's nice and festive, it's in
keeping with the, the floral theme of this.
But let's see what happens when we convert this to CMYK.
So I'm just going to Double-click on that swatch.
I've checked Preview, and to make this into Real Process, I have to do two
steps, but when I choose CMYK as my color mode.
Immediately you're going to see the results.
So this is InDesign's way of saying, well this is as close as I can come.
Now of course if this is going to print process, I need to do one extra step,
which is Convert that to Process. And then then I Click OK, well it's a
little bit disappointing. Undo, and Redo, now that's one way to
change to Process, but here's another way to change it.
And, this is a non-destructive way, so you might like this way better.
And that's by using Ink Manager. So, you can find Ink Manager in the Panel
Menu of the Swatches Panel. You'll find it in Export Dialogues as well.
And when you're in Separations Preview you'll see it too.
So Ink Manager's job of course is to map a spot color to a process color, change a
spot color to Process, or map one spot color to another, and this is one real
easy way to change them all to Process. So you'll notice there is the little spot
icon, and when I check Use All Spots to Process, there we go.
Now when I Click, OK you'll see both of them change.
So the blue's gotten duller, the green's gotten duller, that's unavoidable, that's
the best we can do if we print in CMYK. But again remember, that Ink Manager is a
non destructive force, so you don't see any change in your Swatches panel.
The colors still think they're Spot, but if I export a PDF, those are going to be
rendered in CMYK. So this is typical of the sort of change
you're going to see when you start with a spot color, but then you convert to CNYK.
So keep this in mind as you plan your jobs, know the most that you can about
how a job's going to print, and then spec your colors accordingly.
And that way you don't have any disappointment at the end.