Here is the ghostscript questions Andy!!

[Gilligan]

I'd love to read that entire writeup.

But for the record... I'm still getting access denied on Win 7.  I know what is happening.  It is trying to default to the c:\users\UserName\WhateverYouCalledIt.ps and UAC does not allow that directory to be written to by a "user" (even administrator).

Illustrator is smarter in that it pulls up a "save as" dialog box but PS as well as the printers own "test page" action does not.

A battle for another day.  I guess I can always move things into Illustrator to output to Ghost.. it's an extra step but not a terribly complicated one.

[screenxpress]

sent you a pm

[Gilligan]

Cool... still working out some of the details but I found that Photoshop was dumping the .ps files into the photoshop dir.  Which UAC doesn't allow that so that explains the Access Denied error in Win7.... now to figure out a work around.

[screenxpress]

I'm guessing you didn't read the second write-up I sent last night where it described the work around in PS/CS4/5 to write to a file. 

I know that method will let you save the file (.eps) anywhere you want.  BTW, I'm on 7.

[Gilligan]

Yes I did... that was the "still working out some of the details" part.  I tried that here (XP) and got a few errors and it didn't out put with halftones.

So, I'm working both angles still.

[screenxpress]

Did you download the Wilflex RIP and Load to PS? 

That made all the difference for me in CS5.  Earlier versions of PS have the "output to file" option.

[Gilligan]

I did... I actually just got the email saying my reply to yours bounced.

I'm actually on CS4 at the house here (xp), CS5 on the wife's 7 machine.  7 has the UAC problem, but XP doesn't give me an option of where to save it... just silently shoves it in the program files directory (photoshop).

[Gilligan]

Ok... question.

I just dropped in my greyscale turkey into Illustrator to run to ghostscript (works better out of illustrator as I still have those Win7 kinks to work out, plus the wife fixed the text and she likes Illy)... So now when I go to print the output it is assuming actual CMYK data (including the CMY) when all I have is Black.

When I ran my halftone test Illy just KNEW all I had was black and unchecked the CMY channels.  I tried manually unchecking them but it is blending to get my greys so when I look in Ghostview it's obviously missing "color".

What gives?  BTW, my turky is an embedded PSD and not done in Illy.  Shouldn't Illy know what my colors are and set them up properly when outputting?

[ebscreen]

If the whole file is your image, convert it to greyscale in Photoshop and save as a PSD.

If it's a channel separation, make sure your channels are all spot colors, save as PSD with spot colors.

Open PSD in Illy (only works on CS2 and before for me), click with direct selection tool (white arrow), each
channel should be selectable, place on separate layers and delete background CMYK file. Okay to add
vector elements at this point if necessary/possible. All of your spot colors should show up in your pallet
if done correctly.

[Gilligan]

I'm trying to place it as a PSD (saved as greyscale) but it's not working.

There are no separations, just indexed it to the greys I wanted then converted to greyscale.

What else can I do?  I really hate to redraw this thing after all this tweaking.  I mean, I guess if that's what it takes.  I just don't want to have to do things the "long way" because I'm failing at something simple.

[ebscreen]

Once it is in Illustrator click the image and assign it the process/global black from your swatches.

[Gilligan]

Could you explain further?  I'm not getting it.

[Gilligan]

To be clear, I'm selecting the object and then clicking on one of the swatches and that doesn't seem to be cutting it.

[Gilligan]

ALL STOP

I got other problems with this file... it's not the psd.

My bad.  Will sort it and get back to you guys.

[ebscreen]

Yeah, just double checked my instructions and they worked fine. Good luck.