CMYK/Pantone chaos in pdfs from Multichannel files

[Daytona]

I am trying to create a pdf with pantone colours only, from a document whose imported pictures are Multichannel (pantone) psd files. However, the pdf comes out as pantone *plus* cmyk. It seems like Quark both outputs the pantone values as well as adds converted cmyk values, making the pdfs muddied and dark - and wrong.Can anyone help?I am using Quark 8.02.(Sorry if this has been covered previously; I couldn't find any mention of this problem.)

[eyoungren]

Try saving out DCS files from Photoshop and importing them. DCS is essentially an EPS format and was designed for duotone/multichannel (by Quark itself, no less). I'm not sure if you can keep anything like type as vector or not though. BTW, you want DCS 2.0. That will give you one file instead of multiple EPS files.
XPress does not yet handle PSD very well and I would guess is interpeting your black (gray) channel as rich black.

[Daytona]

Thanks, that was a no-go though. When I converted the .psd multichannel files to EPSes, they didn't even show up on the pdf.I don't know what's going on, but what really boggles my mind is that Quark both exports the multichannel pantones correctly *and* converts them to cmyk. It seems it should be either or.

[UtahLlama]

lots of suggestions, hopefully one will work to composite PDF? (unlike InDesign CS2 or Illustrator CS4 onwards, DCS would only work for Separated output from Quark)
1. Use AsIs for your output color space.
2. In Photoshop a 2 spot colour multi-channel .psd could be just 2 channels or CMYK+2, try both (cmyk channels can be empty).
3. In Quark use the psd import XT panel to place the file. (I have a vague recollection of the XT being re-written with 8.1, so upgrading to that or 8.5 might help also?).
4. In the old -old days the only sure fire way of achieving this was to 1st save the spot colour psd as Photoshop PDF, then in Acrobat Pro SaveAs EPS, then place the EPS into quark, (the preview may be worse than hopeless at this stage), then Print to composite postscript and Distill.
5. change versions of Photoshop, CS and earlier used whole number CMYK values to describe PANTONES, CS2 - CS5 used Lab and CMYK (not whole numbers) to describe PANTONES, CS6 use Lab values only. I've also noticed even custom named spot colours seem to retain a link back to a PANTONE name if that's how they were first chosen in Photoshop grrrr. Mix and Matching PANTONE Libraries in CS can cause Illustrator to be unable to open old files with placed spot colour files, if it can cause this chaos to an Adobe app I'm sure it is more than capable of messing with quark!

[lewaw]

Hi, In Quark 8.16 all works ok. I very often do multichannel posters, and everything is ok.

Important is:
step 1
In Photoshop prepare bitmaps in multichannel mode or multichannel + CMYK (empty cmyk channels)
step 2
Import psd from spot channels (important is to save spot colors when You save psd file in Photoshop) into Quark
step 3
Export to pdf (pdf/x-1a, mode = composite, setup = Composite CMYK and SPOT, or own preset for example ISO Coated etc.)
In window - plate You should can see only spot colors without CMYK
In pdf You should have of course only Spot colors, cmyk plates should be empty. (it show me separation from pdf in AI, or in PuzzleFlow, or info from verification for pdfx- 1a form Quark.)
Sometimes I prepare only grayscale bitmap and in Quark I colorize them in pantone colors, If I have more than one spot colors in bitmaps I add overprint for each color bitmap, and everything is ok too.
Regards