In Illustrator, converting the CMYK doesn’t flatten anything. In Photoshop, there’s the option of flattening during the conversion, but not in Illustrator.
Flattening in Illustrator (through the layers panel) doesn’t do the same thing as Photoshop. In Illustrator, flattening just consolidates all the layers into a single layer, but it still preserves the stacking order of the objects without changing the objects themselves. In Photoshop, flattening merges everything into a single bitmap. Whatever was behind something else on another layer is gone in a flattened Photoshop file.
Why were you using all those spot colors? Unless you’ll be printing in spot colors, there’s no need for them, and a 27-color spot job would be horrendously expensive to print. If you’re outputting CMYK, just build the color in CMYK.
Will your printer be printing these on an offset press or with a digital printer. If digital, it’s likely best to build and leave the file in an RGB format to take advantage of the larger color gamut that most digital printers have, which will help preserve your brighter colors.
I don’t know what your printer was asking, but I have a feeling you misinterpreted it. I’m not even completely sure of the problem you’re having, but you might consider trying to open the file as an RGB document in Photoshop at a high resolution (maybe 300ppi), then just sending a flattened version of that to your printer. If there’s black type on your image, consider placing the RGB Photoshop file into InDesign and adding the type there. This will keep the type in its vector format while flattening and simplifying the illustration into a standard RGB raster image.
If Photoshop balks at opening all those spot colors, you’ll probably need to go back into the Illustrator file and convert some of them to RGB to get them below whatever threshold Photoshop might have in dealing with them.
I still think this is porn spam and not worth the time to answer. But I did. And the answer was what I suspected. Spots and transparancy.
I too believe that someone is misinterpreting the printer’s instructions and we can only guess why your file is doing dumb things when done wrong. Ask your printer.
I was using pantone colours. I had some transparencies and effects and I thought that doing so maybe ‘created spot colours’ because I am not consciously using spot colours.
It’s for a digital print, a poster.
I already outlined the type in illustrator so it wont be affected.
If you are using Pantones your are consciously using Spot Colors. Pantone colors are spot colors. And being such, Adobe has never ever believed they should/could be printed with transparency. I don’t know why they think spots and transparency should break their software but it has been a known issue since somewhere around 2001.
Or if you have Indesign available, try placing the art in there and going to Swatches, and in the little hamburger upper right, select Ink Manager and change your spots to process there, then try your PDF (you may still need the x1-a format)
I doubt it’s a matter of anyone thinking “spots and transparency should break our software,” and I wouldn’t call it a flaw. It’s pretty much the same issue that occurs when someone tries to construct a gradient using 2 or more spot colors; the transition between the colors inevitably becomes something that can’t be output using only the spot inks. Transparency and blend modes create interactions that rely on full-gamut availability.
The whole mindset that you need to use Pantone ink mixes to create Pantone colors and you can’t mix them digitally is foreign to me. While I’m guessing the “breakage” is maybe to prevent designers from design something that can’t be done on a plate press, a simple warning box would do, one that can be shut off, that says “you are about to mix/make transparent spot colors, you can only do this with any degree of success on a digital press.” Inner and outer glows don’t break the software. It’s only when applied to spot colors. That is a gaffe to me but eh, whatever.
Printing is a learned trade. It requires just as much learning as a masters degree. Been doing this 20+ years and still finding new ways to do things. And designers are still finding new, wrong ways to set up files, LOL
I don’t use Acrobat. Tbh I am getting anxiety just thinking about having to learn another program. I try to stick to ai, ps & indesign if possible. Thanks for your feedback. If i get desperate I’ll try acrobat!
Wow I feel so ignorant, I normally just choose .pdf and i guess i block those other options out because software gives me anxiety tbh. I did try x-1a and its still telling me it cant process it because of the spot colours
