Another PDF question

**masque** · 19 August 2010, 09:33 AM

I've attached a file that was created in DesignerPro6 and exported as a PDF/x-1a.
The background colour when opened in Designer is now black as opposed to the red colour behind the house on the rectangle that is due to the shadow area.
Apart form another problem that has now cropped up with this, can anyone suggest a reason why its turned black. (Thats assuming it shows black on any other computer than mine)
In Illustrator or anything adobe its the right colours but I need to know whats going on.
Derek

**Soquili** · 19 August 2010, 01:19 PM

Hi Derek,

The background looks red on my system using Adobe Reader.

**sjukmidlands** · 19 August 2010, 02:30 PM

It looks dark red on mine too (Acrobat Pro 9)

**gwpriester** · 19 August 2010, 02:44 PM

Looks dark red in Acrobat. But when I import the file into Designer the background is black. So, confirmed. Same thing with Xtreme Pro. And yes, it looks fine in Illustrator. So the problem would appear to be with Designer's PDF import.

Just out of curiosity, was your background color Pantone? Maybe Designer is having problems importing Pantone spot colors.

**Soquili** · 19 August 2010, 03:28 PM

Note to self: read the Full Post before replying.

Sorry Derek, on import the red does become black.

**masque** · 19 August 2010, 03:40 PM

Originally Posted by gwpriester

Looks dark red in Acrobat. But when I import the file into Designer the background is black. So, confirmed. Same thing with Xtreme Pro. And yes, it looks fine in Illustrator. So the problem would appear to be with Designer's PDF import.

Just out of curiosity, was your background color Pantone? Maybe Designer is having problems importing Pantone spot colors.

Gary
No, its 34.4% red in RGB sampled from a colour in a file supplied. To be honest its gone to print now and everything at there end is fine with the PDF sent which was made in Illustrator as I just didn't trust my original PDF from Designer, though thats the first problem i've ever had with PDF.
It might be something to do with the spot colour blue key line overlay for cutting though I don't know why or what the problem might be.
Bill
Dont worry about it. I often find myself answering posts I haven't read without realising I don't know whats being asked. I suspect that theres a lot going on around me I'm completely oblivious too.
Derek

**amoore** · 19 August 2010, 05:53 PM

I think it has to do with opening or importing CMYK versus RGB. I have similar problems with materials from our ad agency. They use InDesign. Their comps import as RGB. The photos and non-photo colors are perfect.

Final, press-ready art with progressive color bars and reg marks? That's another story. The non-photo colors look wrong on screen, but they seem to print correctly. The photos appear as negatives and print as negatives. If I'm lucky, I can resurrect a barely usable version with third-party correction tools.

**minimiro** · 19 August 2010, 07:36 PM

When I open it in Acrobat and check your colors its seems that you have small problem there.... how you created your colors, as linked pantones or what?

**masque** · 19 August 2010, 09:22 PM

Originally Posted by minimiro

When I open it in Acrobat and check your colors its seems that you have small problem there.... how you created your colors, as linked pantones or what?

The logo "virdee" was supplied as an eps file on a sample of the background colour. The red I sampled and used to fill the entire surface and as far as I know it was simply 34.4% red RGB. The houses were drawn in Designer and are filled as normal with a red from the colour bar and the extra text simply white. The blue key line cut marks are a spot colour provided by the print company to overlay the art work. I've re-done the whole thing in Illustrator and its now fine and in production. It was the red showing as black in the PDF when opened in Designer that worried me as I thought that maybe it was a problem with PDF export or import with Designer.
I now know that Acrobat shows problems with the file as produced in Designer both in the Logo and around the house drawing. Exactly where the problems originated I'm not sure, (other than that its most likely my fault)

**Albacore** · 20 August 2010, 09:28 AM

I quickly assembled your doc. from totally fresh start in X DPro 6 and then exported my version and checked it out in Acro 8 and everything exported correctly just with the blue/grey letters being very slightly off. I named your colours instead of using spot colours, for why, as I don't trust them to be accurate using the PDF export as it is CMYK. OK this might be slightly more expensive but you have a bitmap effect which would mean anyway you would need to use CMYK because of that. The only way you could get round that would be to make a vector shadow of the house and give it a tint of your spot colour but it would be more in your face because it wasn't blurred