PDEDeviceNColorsCreate seems to do it
i can now turn off the colors in a devicen object, the only issue is turning it back on
PDEDeviceNColors l_DeviceNColorsNew = PDEDeviceNColorsCreate(l_NewVals,l_Colorants);
l_GState.fillColorSpec.value.colorObj2 = (PDEObject)l_DeviceNColorsNew;
PDEElementSetGState((PDEElement)inElement, &l_GState, sizeof (PDEGraphicState));
basically l_colorants = 7 and l_vals originally = 65536,0,0,0,0,0,0
when i do 0,0,0,0,0,0,0 it removes the tint but then if i reset it to 65536,0,0,0,0,0,0 the tint never comes bach