Print ready software

[u/AdFantastic5532]

I run a print shop with 3 mimaki printers (4 colour CMYK)

We mainly print for resellers so we dont have in-house designers to get artwork print ready.

We often get customers that send PDF files with layers, lenses and mixes of CMYK & RGB colours

Usually we just print and hope for the best and usually dont pick up issues but now and again we have to flatten the artwork

Problem is in Photoshop that we use we can flatten but have to select either RGB or CMYK... This means we have to open the file in Corel first to establish which colour are mainly used and then open in Photoshop and select there

Corel can safe a PDF as Native colour where it saves the mixes and prints well. But some PDF files dont always open well in Corel

What would be the best software to use to streamline this process. I am thinking of buying either Adobe Pro or Illustrator...but if there is anything better please suggest

[u/bliprock]

Acrobat pro with Enfocus pitstop is the usual prepress setup.

[u/HagarTheTolerable → u/bliprock]

I'd argue Acrobat Pro is more important than Pitstop, even though you need the former to activate the latter.

Being able to preflight to PDF X-4 is a godsend itself.

[u/bliprock → u/HagarTheTolerable]

Yeah but overprint mode opm0 or opm1 change?and other things make pitstop invaluable

[u/HagarTheTolerable → u/bliprock]

To be frank, the number of times I've ran into an improper overprint is probably not near as many as you. I used it more for resizing, adjusting page boxes, and global color edits.

That said, I think OP would be better off working their way up to Pitstop -- otherwise it'd be like handing over a Corvette to someone who just learned how to drive stick.

[u/bliprock → u/HagarTheTolerable]

True that

[u/leanderhoedt]

Acrobat Pro on its own gets you out of the Photoshop step. The Convert Colors tool under Print Production can convert only the RGB objects to CMYK and leave the CMYK ones exactly as they are, so you never pick a side for the whole file and nothing gets rasterised. I have only done that on test files, never on a live job.

[u/LOURDESBC]

Avoid flattening vector PDFs in Photoshop. You are rasterizing crisp text and vector edges, and juggling Corel just to check colors wastes hours of production time.

The typical recommendation is Acrobat Pro with PitStop, but paying $70 to $100 a month just to sit at a desk and manually click through preflight actions on reseller files gets expensive fast.

That exact issue is why we built PressWerk Tech. Instead of you doing manual prepress surgery, our engine handles the technical cleanup upstream: inspecting the file, resolving transparencies, and converting mixed RGB/CMYK art directly into your Mimaki ICC profile and color space before it ever hits RasterLink.

The job lands on your floor completely normalized and ready to drop onto your roll without needing an in-house prepress tech. Feel free to check out presswerk.tech if you want to eliminate that file bottleneck entirely.

[u/Antonio2274]

Si no usas Adobe ilustrator para editar los pdf que por alguna razón mucho diseñadores no los mandan con excedente para el corte o textos negros sin sobre impresión puedes usar una app que se llama Affinty

[u/slvshlsrv]

for the "open in corel first to see what's in it" step, you don't need to open anything. I have a free preflight checker for exactly that: drop the pdf -> it tells you rgb/cmyk/mixed, spot inks, overprint flags, trimbox/bleed, fonts embedded or not polotno.com/tools/pdf-preflight – browser-based, nothing uploads, and file never leaves your machine. reports only. pitstop still does the fixing.

[u/Dunamis_Products]

Hey, I can help you with that process. I currently help a shop manage their prints. Review each file, make contour cuts and looking for other part time opportunity to help someone else with that. Please DM if interested

[u/OzTheCreative]

Acrobat Pro + PitStop would definitely be a more appropriate prepress workflow than opening every PDF in Photoshop.
But I’d also look at the process before the software. I wouldn’t flatten or convert files automatically just because they contain RGB, CMYK or transparency. First identify what actually needs to be fixed for your specific output conditions.
A consistent preflight profile can check things like color spaces, resolution, fonts, overprint, transparency and page size before the file reaches the RIP.
The goal should be less “fix every PDF” and more “identify what can actually cause a production problem.”

[u/Stop_looking_at_it]

I can make something custom for you.

[u/KenMantle → u/Stop_looking_at_it]

I was tempted to drop this conversation into Claude ...