Handling "All" Spot Color in a RIP That Misinterprets It as CMYK

[tdeschampsBluewest]

Hi everyone,

I have a customer facing an unusual issue: their RIP does not handle the "All" spot color correctly. Instead of dynamically adjusting based on the actual ink used, it always interprets "All" as CMYK (4 plates), even if the page contains only black.

My goal is to remap or recreate the mark using the actual colors present in the PDF. I have access to Enfocus Switch and the Scripting Module, so I’m open to automation solutions.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

Select spot color "All" → Convert to DeviceN → This works for other spot colors but does not affect "All".
Use "Create Separation" action → Split the PDF → Merge back → This is time-consuming and sometimes produces odd behavior with certain files.


Is there a more efficient or obvious way to handle this? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[JimmyHartington]

Is it only for CMYK you want to do this or also any spot-colors which could be in the file?

[tdeschampsBluewest]

Hi Jimmy, it need to be exactly the colors present on the document, so Spot colors included.

[JimmyHartington]

Tricky

[yosimo]

Maybe it helps to define the Alternate Color Space of the spot/registration color 'All' in gray?

[bens]

How about copying the objects using All, then pasting, and finally remapping to the separation you want? Unfortunately you can't do this in a loop with just PitStop, but using Switch that should be possible.

Select spot color All
Copy objects to clipboard All
Select all
Paste objects from clipboard All
Select last added objects
Remap spot color

Put this in Switch with a loop that changes the spot colour in the final action with the information from a previous preflight. You'll have to process the file as many times as there are spot colours, but hopefully that's not too slow.