FM9 Upgrade

[Alan Litchfield]

Howard,

Let's just say first that there is a lot of confusion about how to deal with
RGB channels in "print <nearly> ready" pdfs. But you say you are able to
output separations (two plates, I take it from your description - one spot and
one black) so the plate makers should be able to convert any RGB to black in
both separations.

Howard Rauch wrote:
>
> Over the past several years, we have done 5 or 6 major documents and have had
> a problem with RGB color in each one. A printing house sees us coming and
> tries to go into a hiding because the original was a FM document.

Then choose a different supplier. They obviously don't want the work.

>
> We are currently finishing up another catalog (document) and have sent sample
> pages to the graphics house. The response is that the FM sample pages have
> "RGB channels" and are not suitable for offset printing.

As above. But there is no such thing as an "RGB channel". RGB is three
channels, one for Red, one for Green, and one for Blue. An application may
handle the three of them together for the sake of expediency.

> The graphics house
> has now recommended that we use PhotoShop to set up a gray-scale channel for
> the spot color and import the gray-scale document into FM. 

If you are talking about an image that is in greyscale and if people are
getting toey about it then save it as an eps or pdf and use that with the spot
colour defined. When it is separated that spot colour will be retained as a
separated plate.

> My questions are these:
> - Is there a workaround, plug-in, or something that will enable me to get rid
> of the "RGB channels" and still allow me to use the spot color in Frame?

As above. Prepress software is has been capable of converting RGB to spot or
CMYK values for at least 10 years. This is not new technology. It is not
something you need to do, it is handled by the prepress operator.

> - Would FM9 or the new FM Graphics Suite solve the RGB/spot color problem?
>

The word on the street is that it does, but only if you export to or save as
pdf. Not if you print. Others will correct me if I am wrong.

Alan

-- 
Alan Litchfield MBus (Hons), MNZCS
AlphaByte
PO Box 1941, Auckland
http://www.alphabyte.co.nz