KB76726337: DeskPack Plugins - Ink Manager is showing CMY inks even though they are not in the file

Summary

When you place a DCS2 file (.eps) that contains a spot channel called "Black" in an Adobe^® Illustrator^® file that does not contain CMY inks, the CMY inks still show up in the Ink Manager even though you have disabled the Process Inks in Images option for CMY.

Symptoms

Place a DCS2 file in the Adobe^® Illustrator^® that has a custom spot channel named Black. When this file is placed in the Adobe^® Illustrator^®, the Swatches palette shows a Black swatch from the DCS2 file as well as the Process Black swatch from the Adobe^® Illustrator^® default palette.

If you double click the Black spot swatch coming from the DCS2 file in the Ai Swatches palette, you will see that the swatch is actually defined as CMYK. This is because the ink name "Black" is a reserved name for process inks in Adobe^® Illustrator^®. Therefore, Ai creates that pseudo spot color swatch Black with CMYK values.

A spot channel should never be named the same as any of the process inks.

Solution

This will not be solved as it is not an Ink Manager issue.

Workaround

1. Open the DCS2 file in Adobe^® Photoshop^®.
2. Change the name of the Black channel to something other than a process ink name.
3. Save the file.
4. Update the placed DCS in Adobe^® Illustrator^®.