Changing Spot Colors to CMYK in Gradients

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wgmeeker
Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Nov 01, 2019 4:36 pm

Changing Spot Colors to CMYK in Gradients

Post by wgmeeker »

Hello, I was wondering if there was an action to select all spot colors in a gradient and convert them to a CMYK build. If not, is there an option to select just the gradients within an action list? Thanks!
abailescollins
Advanced member
Posts: 458
Joined: Wed Apr 22, 2015 4:28 pm

Re: Changing Spot Colors to CMYK in Gradients

Post by abailescollins »

What you are looking for is:

Select Shading
Select Spot Colors (set to all)
AND

Then you need a 'Convert' action.
either 'Convert Color' (set to CMYK), or something similar.

Bear in mind the 'Convert' Actions will use the color management preferences you have set.
If you wish you can also add color management preferences to the Action List so it's completely self contained.
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wgmeeker
Newbie
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Nov 01, 2019 4:36 pm

Re: Changing Spot Colors to CMYK in Gradients

Post by wgmeeker »

I have one more question related to this. This method worked, however the action caused the gradient to create more nodes than necessary. I have attached 2 images. The "2 NODE GRADIENT" image is what the original looked like and the "GRADIENT WITH 7 NODES" is what it converts to. Is there a workaround for this?
Attachments
GRADIENT WITH 7 NODES.JPG
GRADIENT WITH 7 NODES.JPG (22.35 KiB) Viewed 2640 times
2 NODE GRADIENT.JPG
2 NODE GRADIENT.JPG (22.65 KiB) Viewed 2641 times
bens
Advanced member
Posts: 252
Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2011 10:13 am

Re: Changing Spot Colors to CMYK in Gradients

Post by bens »

Hi wgmeeker,

You can remove those extra stops by dragging them down; I would not recommend this however.

Those extra stops are being added in order to maintain the visual appearance of the gradient. In your example the original gradient has two colours defined: the green at the beginning and pinkish at the end. All the colours in between are calculated mathematically based on those two colours and some gradient function. An important thing to know here is that this calculation is done in the colour space of the defined stops. When converting the stops to a different colour space this can radically change the "in between" colours because doing the same calculations in a different colour spaces gives different results. To prevent this, PitStop adds extra stops to ensure the gradient stays consistent.

There is a simple test you can do to confirm this: take a copy of your original gradient and rasterise it (PitStop Pro menu - Object - Rasterize Selection). Put this image right next to the original gradient, and then colour convert both to CMYK. They should still look the same. Now in the Inspector you can drag the gradient stops down to remove them. What you'll notice is that as you remove stops the shading starts to look a bit different and no longer exactly matches the rasterised version.
Attachments
Screenshot 2022-01-05 at 10.38 copy.jpg
Screenshot 2022-01-05 at 10.38 copy.jpg (79.19 KiB) Viewed 2222 times
Screenshot 2022-01-05 at 10.37 copy.jpg
Screenshot 2022-01-05 at 10.37 copy.jpg (80.74 KiB) Viewed 2223 times
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