Printing Duotones

[John Gordon]

I converted a grayscale photo into a black/red duotone in
Photoshop and saved it as a multi-channel image in the
Photoshop DCS 2 format. When I try to import the duotone
onto a Publisher 2002 page, set up for spot color
printing, it views as a black and white photo. Only the
black separation prints. The red printer sends out a blank
sheet of paper. The duotone views correctly in Photoshop
and separates out correctly when I print directly from
Photoshop. Can you help me?

 

[Scott]

Pub 2002 cannot pick up spot colors from imported eps files.

 

[rich sweeney]

Hi, I am also hearing from Adobe that they think dcs file
are too unreliable for any program. If you find the
answer too this, please post it.

I am not a pic person, but could you convert it to a cmyk
file instead, and leave the 2 unwanted colors as blank?
Then make your your whole file cmyk, but every color 100%
of just 2 (same as your pick) of the channels. I think we
wound up doing that on a job a while back.

 

[mact]

for a real duotone, use photoshop eps, not multiple channel dcs. in a
multiple file setup, the app has to know to go grab the preseparated
component files while printing. this can only happen if (1) the app knows
about this stuff and (2) you are printing separations. multile file dcs
won't work at all for composite output.

this doesn't answer whether MSPub can handle it (the Pshop eps) but i'd
suspect it would not as sepas but might as composite...of course, you'd have
to deal with the rest of the page being rgb.

 

[Sherri]

We use many Duotones and DCS files in out work here. As a
commercial printer we have explored all aspects on how to
deal with it. After years of dealing with it. We have
found the most effective way to work the file is. Saving
it out of Photoshop as the DCS2.0 eps file. Saving as a
Single composite full color. Then, Using a program call
DCS Merger. It is owned by a company called Impressed.
www.impressed.de It compresses the file so it can be
printed. We are Mac Based here, we use PC programs little
but enough to know how it works. We found it works with
All Mac based programs as well as PC programs. If you want
to know more about it feel free to email me

Sherri Thobe
The Messenger Press