Grayscale Images are RGB

[Dov Isaacs]

On the Macintosh, real grayscale TIFF came out into PostScript and hence PDF as grayscale.
Other than for EPS, this never happened on Windows prior to FrameMaker 9 "save as PDF" without
the RGB option.

Unlike InDesign which uses Adobe's internal AGM technology for directly generating PostScript
and PDF, FrameMaker is still pretty much a Windows GDI client. Could FrameMaker be modified to
work like InDesign? Sure, if Adobe thought that there would be enough revenue to justify same.
Quite frankly, if you really need to worry about critical color and graphic arts issues and
don't need certain FrameMaker creature comforts and structured document features, you might
consider migrating to InDesign.

The XP hotfix has absolutely nothing to do with this issue. It only fixes text handling issues.

	- Dov

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott White [mailto:swhite at alamark.com]
> Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2010 9:45 AM
> To: Dov Isaacs
> Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com List; Jason Hauman
> Subject: Re: Grayscale Images are RGB
> 
> Dov
> Thanks for your reply.
> Here's the history. We've been using these same images for years with older versions of frame without
> problems. These images are grayscale .tif files that we painstakingly processed over the years. More
> than 1,000,000 images.
> We have done all our catalogs with Frame, first on the mac and then of course on windows when the mac
> was no longer supported. I still keep my mac running classic so I can run Frame 7 just in case.
> 
> So I don't think the images are in question.
> 
> We first started seeing some issues arise in Framemaker 8 and it has since moved along to Framemaker
> 9. The print-quality PDF results with the same acrobat settings we had used in the past were no longer
> giving us valid results.
> Our printer has recently been converting our outputs to grayscale and 4-color for no charge since that
> was a simple fix. But for my clients who choose to use a different printer, there is a charge for
> this.
> 
> What I have decided to do is find out why settings we used to use for Acrobat no longer work in later
> versions of Frame or Acrobat. I know technology changes so I need to find out what I need to do. So
> far I have made sure I have the latest updates for Frame 9, installed the hotfix that Art suggested on
> the xp drive of our iMac, and will incorporate your suggestions as well.
> 
> I'm studying your first point about anything other than EPS will come out as RGB. I find that
> interesting that a desktop publishing software app from Adobe would not output the correct image
> results like InDesign. I know our .tif images were  output correctly in older versions. I never had
> the printer give me an alert about my images before.
> 
> I know we will get to the bottom of this so I can truly understand what is happening with files so I
> can relay that to the clients who use Framemaker with our software to print their 1,000-page catalogs.
> 
> 
> 
> Scott White
> Media Production & EBC Manager
> Implementation Coordinator
> 210-704-8239
> swhite at alamark.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jan 28, 2010, at 11:04 AM, Dov Isaacs wrote:
> 
> > Two possibilities here ...
> >
> > (1)	Assuming you are using the "RGB option" for "save as PDF" or printing to the Adobe PDF
> > PostScript printer driver instance, except for images are in EPS format, all grayscale and
> > CMYK images imported into FrameMaker will come out as RGB. FrameMaker is a GDI application
> > except when NOT using the "save as PDF" without the RGB option.
> >
> > (2)	Many images that users THINK are grayscale are actually RGB. When using the various
> > options in Photoshop to convert a color image to black and white, unless you ALSO apply
> > the option to convert what looks like a grayscale image to actual grayscale, you will end
> > up with an RGB image in which for every pixel R=G=B in value.
> >
> > R=G=B "grayscale" RGB images typically do not properly print with only the K (black) channel
> > on most devices and/or with most drivers.
> >
> > So, UNFORTUNATELY, with FrameMaker you have two options, both assuming that the image really
> > is grayscale and not an R=G=B RGB image:
> >
> > The first option is to use "save as PDF" and don't select the RGB option. This only works for
> > FrameMaker 9 and may be problematic if you run into one of the bugs associated with NOT using
> > the RGB option. (When you don't select the RGB option, FrameMaker uses the PostScript Level 1
> > generator from the older UNIX versions of FrameMaker to generate PostScript for distilling.
> > I won't comment on that further! :-(  )
> >
> > The second option is to open the images in question in Photoshop and resave as EPS (ASCII with
> > TIFF header). This option also could be used to "fix" any R=G=B RGB grayscale images; simply
> > convert to grayscale in Photoshop before saving as EPS.
> >
> > 	- Dov