Converting colour to greyscale

[Eggles]

How do you convert colour clipart to greyscale in CDraw 8? I found how to do it once, but I've forgotten. I recall it was somehow done with lines and fills separately but cannot remember how to get there. Currently I end up opening the exported EPS in Illustrator, where it is so easy to do the conversion, but this seems such a waste of time.

[Broacher]

Lyn,

There's a couple of ways, but none as good overall, as AI's 'universal hammer'.

Effects/Adjust/Desaturate -- or adjust Hue, Saturation Level

or

Edit/Replace objects--- then replace colour model with greyscale. Run it twice-- once for fills one for outlines. (a pain). Doesn't seem to work on raster images.

or

Create a rectangle to encompass everything you want converted. Apply a lens using 'Tinted Grayscale' with black as your tint. Freeze the lens. Move it to another page or doc and ungroup. This route tends to drop a lot of advanced Corel features.

or

Publish to a PDF (from within Corel) using 'Greyscale' in the PDF settings. (Now that's something AI can't do!).

Then re-open. Of course, again-- you lose native Corel features, but it works.

[Eggles]

>>Edit/Replace objects--- then replace colour model with greyscale. Run it twice-- once for fills one for outlines. (a pain). <<

THIS is the one I remember running the one time i got it to work - and it was fascinating to watch as the object was a very complex piece of clipart.

>>Doesn't seem to work on raster images.<<

No problems here - Photoshop would be doing this job.

>>Effects/Adjust/Desaturate -- or adjust Hue, Saturation Level<<

I should try this one, as it may be all I need to convert my colour clipart into greyscale (exported/saved as EPS) for inclusion in the numerous B&W newsletters I do.

>>Publish to a PDF (from within Corel) using 'Greyscale' in the PDF settings<<

Can CDraw 8 do this? i.e. publish direct to PDF, without going via printing to postscript file and subsequent distilling.

On a similar note... today I received an ad as a PDF for inclusion in a newsletter. Three images plus text. I placed it into PM and it looked OK but when I tried to print the page it was on - no luck, something about OPI popped up. So I then tried to PDF the page - same message. I opened the PDF in Ilustrator - the text looked fantastic but there were no images, although there appeared to be bounding boxes where they should have been. If this ad was created in AI, is it possible the creator only linked and didn't embed the images? Is what I saw on screen in both Reader and PM a low-rez preview like you get with EPSs? In the end I was able to print directly from Reader and get a good result, which will be 'pasted' - literally - into the printed PM page for making poly plates. We are still working in a very backward environment in my workplace (small old-fashioned printshop) where we can only make films from laser printouts. The rest - read 'the good stuff like colour - gets sent out to a SB for film-making. Computer-to-plate? What's that, I hear my boss ask.

[Broacher]

>>Can CDraw 8 do this?<<

Ah.... no. I forgot you were 'back there'. In which case, check out that 'frozen lens' approach I described. It's a very handy technique for converting outlines to shapes too-- which for ver. 8 users, is a real help.

The OPI (Open Press Interface) message refers to a standard used in big prepress places where yes, a low rez version and a link are what get embedded. Sometimes though, you can get this error even if the full image is in-- it depends a lot on what made the PDF and under what conditions.

If it looks like the full rez is there (a zoom in is usually enough to know) then what you can try is,
1) A refry
2) SaveAs to an EPS from Acrobat (level 1, all fonts included)

BTW, I still use SaveAs to EPS for any PDFs going into Quark or PageMaker. It's the safest route. ID definitely has the most robust PDF import filter.

[Eggles]

>>Create a rectangle to encompass everything you want converted. Apply a lens using 'Tinted Grayscale' with black as your tint. Freeze the lens. Move it to another page or doc and ungroup. This route tends to drop a lot of advanced Corel features.<<

I didn't comment on this approach as I have never used it in CD. But it is certainly worth a try and may save opening AI (which I have noticed can sometimes cause PM's fonts to go awry - not listed in alpha order or even selectable in the control palette) - which invariably ends up with having to reboot the computer (it's OLD OLD OLD and showing its age).

>>If it looks like the full rez is there (a zoom in is usually enough to know) then what you can try is,
1) A refry
2) SaveAs to an EPS from Acrobat (level 1, all fonts included)<<

Since the ad looked OK and even printed reasonably well from Reader (I don't have the full Acrobat, just Distiller), I don't know why I didn't think of refrying . Too frazzled by that stage? as it was the last component of a four page layout that HAD to be finished by that afternoon.

Since I can't save as EPS from Reader, I usually try to open any PDFs in AI to save as EPS for placement into PM, but invariably run into font problems. There seem to be too many ad makers who don't outline their fonts. However, I'm wondering if I re-postscript and distill from within the Reader, can I get around this? I assume if the fonts have been embedded in the PDF (and they must be for it to look OK in Reader- yes?) this would allow me to make an EPS for placement into PM. Shall test this when I go back to work on Monday.

So that's two things to try! Thanks Bob.

[Broacher]

>>Since I can't save as EPS from Reader, I usually try to open any PDFs in AI to save as EPS for placement into PM, but invariably run into font problems. There seem to be too many ad makers who don't outline their fonts.<<

I don't-- outline fonts, that is. Only when necessary. Why? Fonts that have 'hinting' built into them will always look better than outlined versions. And most of the time I subset everything-- including the 'standard 35' which I always embed. I've had too many lines broken by auto printer/RIP substitutions.

>> However, I'm wondering if I re-postscript and distill from within the Reader<<

?? Distill from within Reader? Are you saying that you have Distiller, but not Acrobat? Is this the Distiller that came with PageMaker? What version?


>>I assume if the fonts have been embedded in the PDF (and they must be for it to look OK in Reader- yes?) this would allow me to make an EPS for placement into PM.<<

You realize that fonts can be embedded in EPS files too? Not everyone knows this.

Also interesting is that even if you print from AcroReader to a PS file (if you don't have the Distiller printer driver installed), you can place the PS file itself into PageMaker, as it does have a built in PS interpreter.

But so does CorelDraw. In fact, it's the only app I know of that allows you to convert embedded EPS fonts (subsetted or otherwise) to outlines when importing into CorelDraw (using the PS interpreter import filter). This is often the only way I can work on some files (either PDFs that have been converted to EPS level 2s, or just any EPS or PRN file) at all. For that alone, CDraw is worth the price!

[Eggles]

>>Are you saying that you have Distiller, but not Acrobat? Is this the Distiller that came with PageMaker? What version?<<

Yes. I have Distiller 5 (as of about 2 months ago, prior to that I had only Distiller 3) that came with PM. I know, unbelievable.

The font problem in PDFs are not in those that I create, but PDFs received from outside vendors (usually ads to be placed into publications for which I do the layouts). So we're talking smallish e.g. often 1/4 A4 size with not much text. The problem is that I either do not have the font, or its a Mac font, or even if I have the font, it may not be activated.

So if the people who supply these PDFs were as knowledgeable as you ...

>>I don't-- outline fonts, that is. Only when necessary. Why? Fonts that have 'hinting' built into them will always look better than outlined versions. And most of the time I subset everything-- including the 'standard 35' which I always embed. I've had too many lines broken by auto printer/RIP substitutions<<

... I wouldn't have these issues.

>> However, I'm wondering if I re-postscript and distill from within the Reader<<

Sorry - I meant to say re-postscripting from within Reader (by printing to Distiller), then distilling. Since reading your comments, what I probably should have done was make an EPS from within Reader by printing to Distiller but choosing to make the oputput EPS not PS.

The trouble with these 'conversations' that take place over a number of days is that it is easy to forget what initiated it in the first place. My problem was a small PDF which when placed into PM7 would not print - I got the OPI message. Subsequent investigations with the limited software I have at my disposal - an old version of AI (8?), CDraw 8 and Distiller 5 - I tried to find out why I was having trouble. Opening the PDF in AI, the images weren't there, although the text was. I didn't try opening the PDF in CDraw, as I didn't think of it, and I doubt if such an old version would be capable of it. Opening the PDF in Reader the images were there, and this was in fact how I got a good enough printout to use (by pasting it into the completed layout - 'camera-ready' - for our ancient method of making monotone plates). What I should have tried was making an EPS from Reader (by printing to Distiller) and placing THAT in PM.

But I'm still not sure why the graphics caused the OPI problem in the first place. Were they embedded or not? Was I seeing just a low-rez version when I opened it in Reader? I don't know - I can only have another look tomorrow.

[Eggles]

I opened the problem PDF in Reader and zoomed right in and it was still hard to tell if the graphics were really there. But I then 'refried' - remade the PDF by printing to Distiller - and there were no more messages about OPI when I replaced it in PM. Problem solved.

[Keyare]

LOL - 'Refried PDF's '

I like that. We've all been there!