Separation print to film issue

[prokegler]

Hey all in screen print land.
OK, don't make fun of me because I'm using CDX7 as my main design software, lol. I do have AI and PS, I just find it easier when doing spot color printing. Anyway, I use Digital Art Solutions 3rd party software for 90% of my work and it has a built in separation program for those of you who may have used it. It does a great job for the what I use it for. However, lately I have been having issues with when sending seps to printer to print films, I have been having issues with areas of different colors printing on screens where they aren't supposed to be.
Ex: When printing out the orange film positive, the black screen areas are being recognized as orange and the same for other colors the black is also being pulled to that particular color.
However, the white under base is printing correctly and the on computer screens print view show to be correct.
Can someone tell me why this is happening. I have wasted almost half a roll of film trying to get this corrected. I have reworked my artwork (break apart all areas, make sure to curves, ungrouped etc) numerous times trying to get this problem solved. The artwork does have halftones and gradients. Not sure if this is the issue or not... I've used them many times before in this same software pkg.
Also, when trying to save the image in CDX7 to eps format, CD crashes. When saving as pdf or jpg to use in Photoshop, areas are missing, therefore haven't been able to do seps in PS........ Please help if you can. I'm only a week behind on this design.. I hope this post makes sense to someone!!!!
I also have UltraSeps but not good at doing seps by applying image etc.

Thank you in advance........
Danny

[Prosperi-Tees]

Are there any hidden objects in the object manager panel? Are there any bitmaps in the image?

[Frog]

Do you still have the ability to see a print preview for a selected color? What does it display?

[aauusa]

what is sounds like is that you have overprint fill may have been checked.  easiest way to find out is right click on the object and your fly window which opens should have listed toward the lower portion of the fly window.

[prokegler]

what is sounds like is that you have overprint fill may have been checked.  easiest way to find out is right click on the object and your fly window which opens should have listed toward the lower portion of the fly window.

No overprint fill checked that I can see. When right clicking on the image, the fly down window has hidded object hi lited but no dot in the EYE box. When I click on it, I get a message that says something about needing premier membership to use this feature.

[prokegler]

Do you still have the ability to see a print preview for a selected color? What does it display?

All print previews show exactly what is to be printed. That's what is throwing me, because when the film prints out, each color prints but part of the black plate is printing with it.
As with the attached pic, the CARS nor the NOLAND should be on these films, only the numbers and the outlines....

[Mr Tees!!]

...I have had issues like this when all the colors in the file are not from the same color pallet. I find all colors and replace them with ones from the PMS-C pallet.

...also, if you have fountains/gradients, make sure they do not go all the way down to 0% of a color. Change that value to 1% of that color.

[prokegler]

I'm only using pantone RGB solid coated pallet and no 0% fills........ UGH!!!!

Thanks!!

[aauusa]

email the file to me and I will take a look at it to see if I can see what the issue is.

Dan@aauusa.com

[cbjamel]

Rgb is problem, need spot ie pantone.
Shane

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

[Frog]

Actually, I figured a typo with that "Pantone RGB"

Just for giggles, I tried a simple experiment and made two sqares, one Pantone Orange, and one RGB black.
It printed the orange sep just fine out of CorelDRAW.

prokregler, what if you print directly out of your CorelDRAW?

[Dottonedan]

My first guess is that some of the blacks are not the same spot color black. For example, using clip art from different sources and combining into one file, One artist may use a spot color black and another may use a process black...and often by mistake, another artist may use a registration black as a color fill. It's also possible, that one artist used multiple blacks (including registration black).

The fact that you are getting only (some) of the black areas getting added to the colors, tells me that it's more likely a registration black that is getting used as a standard black. You may already have this registration black being applied to a registration mark and might be why it went unnoticed if getting rid of all other unused colors.

THIS is what the registration black is for. To be automatically added to all screens/colors even though it's not physically added to the other colors. It's used for registration marks (one time) on one layer for example, and then it gets added to all separations.  It's also used on file/job info such as date, customer name, motif etc.

Select the black object that is getting transferred over to the other colors, and reassign it a spot color that is far different than other colors in the art. Like Neon Green for example. Then, select all of the black elements that are not getting reassigned and color those with the Neon green spot color. This will help you see if you have any other blacks.

There is a way in Corel to do this more efficiently, (basically a select same fill color) like we do in Illustrator, but in Corel I remember it's a bit more cumbersome. More steps, but I don't keep that info readily available.

[Frog]

My first guess is that some of the blacks are not the same spot color black. For example, using clip art from different sources and combining into one file, One artist may use a spot color black and another may use a process black...and often by mistake, another artist may use a registration black as a color fill. It's also possible, that one artist used multiple blacks (including registration black).

The fact that you are getting only (some) of the black areas getting added to the colors, tells me that it's more likely a registration black that is getting used as a standard black. You may already have this registration black being applied to a registration mark and might be why it went unnoticed if getting rid of all other unused colors.

THIS is what the registration black is for. To be automatically added to all screens/colors even though it's not physically added to the other colors. It's used for registration marks (one time) on one layer for example, and then it gets added to all separations.  It's also used on file/job info such as date, customer name, motif etc.

Select the black object that is getting transferred over to the other colors, and reassign it a spot color that is far different than other colors in the art. Like Neon Green for example. Then, select all of the black elements that are not getting reassigned and color those with the Neon green spot color. This will help you see if you have any other blacks.

There is a way in Corel to do this more efficiently, (basically a select same fill color) like we do in Illustrator, but in Corel I remember it's a bit more cumbersome. More steps, but I don't keep that info readily available.

In CorelDRAW, I use a Color Replacer Macro from Oberon for this
Now, it is listed as compatible with versions up to X5, but I use it in X6. X7 may be just fine as well.

I have no idea about his add-on Design program (Digital Solutions), but in CorelDRAW, I assure you that once Separations is selected as the type of color output, the print previews definitely show all that will print in any given color. Should not be any surprises.

[prokegler]

A heads up to the issue I was having.
Apparently I had some bitmaps (power clips) in the design that were blocking the reading of the files that were causing the transfer of the image to the RIP to be incorrect.
After a few days of headaches, I somehow figured it out by back tracking thru my artwork and realized the issue.

Thank you for all the advice...

[Dottonedan]

Thanks for coming back and providing the answer. That helps others.