Inks

Selecting Which Separations to Proof

Use the Inks settings to select which separations of the input file(s) you want to proof.

For example, you can use these settings to exclude technical and/or varnish inks from your output.

You can choose to proof either:

All separations.
A number of separations you select Manually.
A number of separations you select by using selection criteria.
Selection criteria are rules that you define to select separations automatically for you when the task is launched on a file.

Selecting separations manually is the easiest option, but you can only do it on a file by file basis (when you launch the task on a single input file).

Using selection criteria is more advanced but also more powerful than selecting separations manually, and you can do it anytime (when launching the task on one or more input files, when using the task in a workflow, when defining ticket settings...).

Therefore, we recommend that you first try selecting separations manually when running the task on individual files, then switch to using selection criteria to automate your workflow further.

Tip:

To get used to working with selection criteria, try the following on a few of your files:

select the separations you want to output manually,
then change Select Inks to by using selection criteria and see which rules have been created based on your manual selection.

For more information, see Selecting Inks Manually and Selecting Inks Using Selection Criteria.

Tip: You can also make the ink selection parameter public so that an operator can set it through Shuttle as needed for each job. See Selecting Inks through Shuttle for more information.

Proofing Files with Unregistered Inks

Unregistered inks are inks that are not present in your color management database, so there is no information about these inks apart from their RGB values in the input file.

If your input file contains PantoneLIVE inks and you don't have a PantoneLIVE license, those inks are also considered to be unregistered inks.

When content proofing with the Proof for Content Approval task, unregistered inks (and unlicensed PantoneLIVE inks) are output without making the task error, but their color on the proof may be inaccurate.

However, when you want to make a color managed proof with the Image to Unscreened Proof task, we recommend you replace all unregistered inks in your input file by inks from your color database before proofing.