How do I get custom spot colors to transfer with the file?

[cdiesel]

When using custom spot colors, how do you get the color to stay with the file? We have 3 computers here--we do most of our design on one computer, but that one's not the pc we use to print from. Problem is when we use the pallette editor to create a new custom color, that color is not saved with the file. It seems to save "spot color #1" or such because when we open on the other computer to output, the colors shown are from the 2nd computer's pallette. It's a pain in the butt to add the colors for every job to both the pallettes!

Chris

 

[Si Allen]

Hmmmmmmmmmm...ever thought of having the same pallettes available on all your computers?

:

 

[cdiesel]

That's a great idea, except when a job calls for one of the thousands of colors that aren't there, and you need to create a custom color.

 

[Derf]

What Programs are you using? and is this for print?

In PhotoShop you can create a DS2 spot channel file or you could copy down the CMYK, RGB, or LAB formula down and remake the color into spot on the other computer.

 

[Fred Weiss]

Seems like you'd also benefit from networking your workstations. then you could print from one to a printer on a different box.

 

[vid]

What Programs are you using?

Sounds like CorelDraw.

Our shop experiences those same issues... Also, when you create a spot color and enter the same values as a default color, the name it chooses for the palette is the default name rather than a name that would more beneficial to production staff.

As I have little knowledge about the intricacies of Corel, I'm more than anxious for a response, too.

best,
vid

Edited to include:

Oh yeah... our stations are networked too. The issue is opening the file on a differnt networked station and having the software recognize the custom color build.

 

[cdiesel]

Derf-
We're using Corel 12 and yes, it is for print. That's exactly what we're doing, creating a new spot color on each computer, but it's time consuming and tedious. Then by the time you create 20 spot colors, they start getting cluttered. It would be nice if you could link a pallette to a file.


Fred-
I would LOVE to have everything networked, but we've been unable to get the computers to talk to eachother. I've been told it's because of the wi-fi internet connection we use on one computer. Networking is not my strong point though..

Chris

 

[WVB]

Your wi-fi is going to depend on if its just an access point or a router. If its a router you can add mac addresses and assign each computer a static ip given by your router. Worse comes to worse you can add them to the DMZ zone, however this works outside the router so you will not have any protection from the router iteself. You will then need to run windows firewall (ok) or Zone Laps ZoneAlarm (Best). I hope I did not go over your head Chris as I did not mean to. If you have questions feel free to contact me.

 

[Tony Teveris]

From what I have played with all user Spot colors are saved in a file called userinks.cpl. There does not seem to be a way for Corel to embed the color palette
into any type of output file.

For a test I create a Gerber Spot Foil palette (all colors saved in userinks.cpl), create a simple job with a number of these colors and saved the file. Renaming the userinks.cpl file and opening the file I just created yielded a number of things, one Corel not finding a userinks.cpl created one with Red, Green, Blue and Black colors and then "mapped" those colors to the colors I have in my simple job, Yuk.

Then I closed out CorelDraw, renamed the userinks.cpl file to it's proper name, reopened the file and all the colors and names were correct.

I have found and reported to Corel that created my own Spot colors and using a % of those colors and then exporting as a CMX file will yield a corrupt CMX file. I hope version 13 fixes this.

Networking, sharing the userinks.cpl file most likely will yield other problems since Corel seems to have this file setup in a certain folder and file read / writes by multiple versions of the app running could corrupt the file.